PuTTY
Encyclopedia
PuTTY is a free and open source
terminal emulator
application which can act as a client
for the SSH
, Telnet
, rlogin
, and raw TCP
computing protocols and as a serial console
client. The name "PuTTY" has no definitive meaning, though "tty" is the name for a terminal in the Unix
tradition, usually held to be short for Teletype
.
PuTTY was originally written for Microsoft Windows
, but it has been ported
to various other operating system
s. Official ports are available for some Unix-like
platforms, with work-in-progress ports to Classic Mac OS
and Mac OS X
, and unofficial ports have been contributed to platforms such as Symbian
and Windows Mobile
.
PuTTY was written and is maintained primarily by Simon Tatham
and is currently beta software.
PuTTY's development dates back to early 1999, and it has been a usable SSH-2 client since October 2000.
Prior to 0.58, three consecutive releases (0.55–0.57) were made to fix significant security holes
in previous versions, some allowing client compromise even before the server is authenticated.
Version 0.58, released in April 2005, contained several new features, including improved Unicode
support, for international characters and right-to-left or bidirectional languages.
Version 0.59, released in January 2007, implemented new features such as connection to serial ports, local proxying, support for SSH and SFTP speed improvements, changes to the documentation format (for Vista compatibility), and has several bugfixes.
Version 0.60, released in April 2007, implements three new features and some bugfixes.
Snapshot r9120 2011-03-05 added support for the zlib@openssh.com delayed compression scheme.
Version 0.61 Beta, released in July 2011, implements new features, bug fixes, and compatibility updates for Windows 7 and various SSH server software.
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
terminal emulator
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
application which can act as a client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
for the SSH
Secure Shell
Secure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...
, Telnet
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...
, rlogin
Rlogin
rlogin is a software utility for Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to log in on another host via a network, communicating via TCP port 513.It was first distributed as part of the 4.2BSD release....
, and raw TCP
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
computing protocols and as a serial console
System console
The system console, root console or simply console is the text entry and display device for system administration messages, particularly those from the BIOS or boot loader, the kernel, from the init system and from the system logger...
client. The name "PuTTY" has no definitive meaning, though "tty" is the name for a terminal in the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
tradition, usually held to be short for Teletype
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...
.
PuTTY was originally written for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, but it has been ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to various other operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. Official ports are available for some Unix-like
Unix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
platforms, with work-in-progress ports to Classic Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, and unofficial ports have been contributed to platforms such as Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
.
PuTTY was written and is maintained primarily by Simon Tatham
Simon Tatham
Simon Tatham is an English programmer known primarily for creating and maintaining PuTTY, a free software implementation of Telnet and SSH clients for Unix and Windows API platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator...
and is currently beta software.
Features
Some features of PuTTY are:- The storing of hosts and preferences for later use.
- Control over the SSHSecure ShellSecure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...
encryption key and protocol version. - Command-line SCPSecure copySecure Copy or SCP is a means of securely transferring computer files between a local and a remote host or between two remote hosts. It is based on the Secure Shell protocol....
and SFTPSSH file transfer protocolIn computing, the SSH File Transfer Protocol is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management functionality over any reliable data stream...
clients, called "pscp" and "psftp" respectively. - Control over port forwardingPort forwardingPort forwarding or port mapping is a name given to the combined technique of# translating the address and/or port number of a packet to a new destination# possibly accepting such packet in a packet filter...
with SSH (local, remote or dynamic port forwarding), including built-in handling of X11 forwarding. - Emulates most xtermXtermIn computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. A user can have many different invocations of xterm running at once on the same display, each of which provides independent input/output for the process running in it .xterm originated prior to the X Window System...
, VT102 control sequences, as well as much of ECMA-48 terminal emulationTerminal emulatorA terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
. - IPv6IPv6Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...
support. - Supports 3DESTriple DESIn cryptography, Triple DES is the common name for the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm block cipher, which applies the Data Encryption Standard cipher algorithm three times to each data block....
, AESAdvanced Encryption StandardAdvanced Encryption Standard is a specification for the encryption of electronic data. It has been adopted by the U.S. government and is now used worldwide. It supersedes DES...
, ArcfourRC4In cryptography, RC4 is the most widely used software stream cipher and is used in popular protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer and WEP...
, BlowfishBlowfish (cipher)Blowfish is a keyed, symmetric block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in a large number of cipher suites and encryption products. Blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date...
, DESData Encryption StandardThe Data Encryption Standard is a block cipher that uses shared secret encryption. It was selected by the National Bureau of Standards as an official Federal Information Processing Standard for the United States in 1976 and which has subsequently enjoyed widespread use internationally. It is...
. - Public-key authentication support.
- Support for local serial port connections.
- Self-contained executable requires no installation.
- Supports the zlib@openssh.com delayed compression scheme (As of r9120 2011-03-05).
Version history
Prior to 0.58, three consecutive releases (0.55–0.57) were made to fix significant security holes
Vulnerability (computing)
In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance.Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw...
in previous versions, some allowing client compromise even before the server is authenticated.
Version 0.58, released in April 2005, contained several new features, including improved Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
support, for international characters and right-to-left or bidirectional languages.
Version 0.59, released in January 2007, implemented new features such as connection to serial ports, local proxying, support for SSH and SFTP speed improvements, changes to the documentation format (for Vista compatibility), and has several bugfixes.
Version 0.60, released in April 2007, implements three new features and some bugfixes.
Snapshot r9120 2011-03-05 added support for the zlib@openssh.com delayed compression scheme.
Version 0.61 Beta, released in July 2011, implements new features, bug fixes, and compatibility updates for Windows 7 and various SSH server software.
Applications
Main functions are realized by PuTTY files themselves:- PuTTY - the TelnetTELNETTelnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...
and SSHSecure ShellSecure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...
client itself; - PSCP - an SCPSecure copySecure Copy or SCP is a means of securely transferring computer files between a local and a remote host or between two remote hosts. It is based on the Secure Shell protocol....
client, i.e. command-line secure file copy; - PSFTP - an SFTPSSH file transfer protocolIn computing, the SSH File Transfer Protocol is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management functionality over any reliable data stream...
client, i.e. general file transfer sessions much like FTPFile Transfer ProtocolFile Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
; - PuTTYtel - a Telnet-only client;
- Plink - a command-line interface to the PuTTY back ends;
- Pageant - an SSH authentication agent for PuTTY, PSCP and Plink;
- PuTTYgen - an RSA and DSADigital Signature AlgorithmThe Digital Signature Algorithm is a United States Federal Government standard or FIPS for digital signatures. It was proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in August 1991 for use in their Digital Signature Standard , specified in FIPS 186, adopted in 1993. A minor...
key generation utility; - pterm - a standalone terminal emulator.
See also
- Comparison of SSH clientsComparison of SSH clientsAn SSH client is a software program which uses the secure shell protocol to connect to a remote computer. This article compares a selection of popular clients.-General:-Platform:...
- SecureCRTSecureCRTSecureCRT is a commercial SSH and Telnet client and terminal emulator by VanDyke Software. Originally a Windows product, VanDyke has recently added a Mac OS X version and Linux version .-History:...
- Cygwin/XCygwin/XCygwin/X is an implementation of the X Window System that runs under Microsoft Windows. It is part of the Cygwin project, and is installed using Cygwin's standard setup system...
- WinSCPWinSCPWinSCP is a free and open source SFTP, SCP, and FTP client for Microsoft Windows. Its main function is secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager and file synchronization functionality...
- XmingXmingXming is an implementation of the X Window System for Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 7.-Features:...
- minttyMinTTYIn computing, mintty is a free and open source terminal emulator for Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows. It features a native Windows user interface and does not require an X server...
External links
- Development libraries related to PuTTY