PuTTY User Manual Page 1 of 3

PuTTY User Manual

PuTTY is a free (MIT-licensed) Windows Telnet and SSH client. This manual documents PuTTY, and its
companion utilities PSCP, PSFTP, Plink, Pageant and PuTTYgen.

Note to Unix users: this manual currently primarily documents the Windows versions of the PuTTY utilities.
Some options are therefore mentioned that are absent from the Unix version; the Unix version has features
not described here; and the pterm and command-line puttygen utilities are not described at all. The only
Unix-specific documentation that currently exists is the man pages.

This manual is copyright 1997-2017 Simon Tatham. All rights reserved. You may distribute this documentation
under the MIT licence. See appendix C for the licence text in full.

l Chapter 1: Introduction to PuTTY

¡ 1.1 What are SSH, Telnet and Rlogin?
¡ 1.2 How do SSH, Telnet and Rlogin differ?
l Chapter 2: Getting started with PuTTY
¡ 2.1 Starting a session
¡ 2.2 Verifying the host key (SSH only)
¡ 2.3 Logging in
¡ 2.4 After logging in
¡ 2.5 Logging out
l Chapter 3: Using PuTTY
¡ 3.1 During your session
¡ 3.2 Creating a log file of your session
¡ 3.3 Altering your character set configuration
¡ 3.4 Using X11 forwarding in SSH
¡ 3.5 Using port forwarding in SSH
¡ 3.6 Making raw TCP connections
¡ 3.7 Connecting to a local serial line
¡ 3.8 The PuTTY command line
l Chapter 4: Configuring PuTTY
¡ 4.1 The Session panel
¡ 4.2 The Logging panel
¡ 4.3 The Terminal panel
¡ 4.4 The Keyboard panel
¡ 4.5 The Bell panel
¡ 4.6 The Features panel
¡ 4.7 The Window panel
¡ 4.8 The Appearance panel
¡ 4.9 The Behaviour panel
¡ 4.10 The Translation panel
¡ 4.11 The Selection panel
¡ 4.12 The Colours panel
¡ 4.13 The Connection panel
¡ 4.14 The Data panel
¡ 4.15 The Proxy panel
¡ 4.16 The Telnet panel
¡ 4.17 The Rlogin panel
¡ 4.18 The SSH panel
¡ 4.19 The Kex panel
¡ 4.20 The Host Keys panel
¡ 4.21 The Cipher panel
¡ 4.22 The Auth panel
¡ 4.23 The GSSAPI panel
¡ 4.24 The TTY panel
¡ 4.25 The X11 panel
¡ 4.26 The Tunnels panel
¡ 4.27 The Bugs and More Bugs panels
¡ 4.28 The Serial panel

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¡ 4.29 Storing configuration in a file

l Chapter 5: Using PSCP to transfer files securely
¡ 5.1 Starting PSCP
¡ 5.2 PSCP Usage
l Chapter 6: Using PSFTP to transfer files securely
¡ 6.1 Starting PSFTP
¡ 6.2 Running PSFTP
¡ 6.3 Using public key authentication with PSFTP
l Chapter 7: Using the command-line connection tool Plink
¡ 7.1 Starting Plink
¡ 7.2 Using Plink
¡ 7.3 Using Plink in batch files and scripts
¡ 7.4 Using Plink with CVS
¡ 7.5 Using Plink with WinCVS
l Chapter 8: Using public keys for SSH authentication
¡ 8.1 Public key authentication - an introduction
¡ 8.2 Using PuTTYgen, the PuTTY key generator
¡ 8.3 Getting ready for public key authentication
l Chapter 9: Using Pageant for authentication
¡ 9.1 Getting started with Pageant
¡ 9.2 The Pageant main window
¡ 9.3 The Pageant command line
¡ 9.4 Using agent forwarding
¡ 9.5 Security considerations
l Chapter 10: Common error messages
¡ 10.1 ‘The server's host key is not cached in the registry’
¡ 10.2 ‘WARNING - POTENTIAL SECURITY BREACH!’
¡ 10.3 ‘SSH protocol version 2 required by our configuration but server only provides (old,
insecure) SSH-1’
¡ 10.4 ‘The first cipher supported by the server is ... below the configured warning threshold’
¡ 10.5 ‘Server sent disconnect message type 2 (protocol error): "Too many authentication failures
for root"’
¡ 10.6 ‘Out of memory’
¡ 10.7 ‘Internal error’, ‘Internal fault’, ‘Assertion failed’
¡ 10.8 ‘Unable to use this private key file’, ‘Couldn't load private key’, ‘Key is of wrong type’
¡ 10.9 ‘Server refused our public key’ or ‘Key refused’
¡ 10.10 ‘Access denied’, ‘Authentication refused’
¡ 10.11 ‘No supported authentication methods available’
¡ 10.12 ‘Incorrect CRC received on packet’ or ‘Incorrect MAC received on packet’
¡ 10.13 ‘Incoming packet was garbled on decryption’
¡ 10.14 ‘PuTTY X11 proxy: various errors’
¡ 10.15 ‘Network error: Software caused connection abort’
¡ 10.16 ‘Network error: Connection reset by peer’
¡ 10.17 ‘Network error: Connection refused’
¡ 10.18 ‘Network error: Connection timed out’
¡ 10.19 ‘Network error: Cannot assign requested address’
l Appendix A: PuTTY FAQ
¡ A.1 Introduction
¡ A.2 Features supported in PuTTY
¡ A.3 Ports to other operating systems
¡ A.4 Embedding PuTTY in other programs
¡ A.5 Details of PuTTY's operation
¡ A.6 HOWTO questions
¡ A.7 Troubleshooting
¡ A.8 Security questions
¡ A.9 Administrative questions
¡ A.10 Miscellaneous questions
l Appendix B: Feedback and bug reporting
¡ B.1 General guidelines
¡ B.2 Reporting bugs
¡ B.3 Reporting security vulnerabilities
¡ B.4 Requesting extra features

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¡ B.5 Requesting features that have already been requested

¡ B.6 Support requests
¡ B.7 Web server administration
¡ B.8 Asking permission for things
¡ B.9 Mirroring the PuTTY web site
¡ B.10 Praise and compliments
¡ B.11 E-mail address
l Appendix C: PuTTY Licence
l Appendix D: PuTTY hacking guide
¡ D.1 Cross-OS portability
¡ D.2 Multiple backends treated equally
¡ D.3 Multiple sessions per process on some platforms
¡ D.4 C, not C++
¡ D.5 Security-conscious coding
¡ D.6 Independence of specific compiler
¡ D.7 Small code size
¡ D.8 Single-threaded code
¡ D.9 Keystrokes sent to the server wherever possible
¡ D.10 640×480 friendliness in configuration panels
¡ D.11 Automatically generated Makefiles
¡ D.12 Coroutines in ssh.c
¡ D.13 Single compilation of each source file
¡ D.14 Do as we say, not as we do
l Appendix E: PuTTY download keys and signatures
¡ E.1 Public keys
¡ E.2 Security details
¡ E.3 Key rollover
l Appendix F: SSH-2 names specified for PuTTY
¡ F.1 Connection protocol channel request names
¡ F.2 Key exchange method names
¡ F.3 Encryption algorithm names

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