PuTTY

PuTTY
	A screenshot of PuTTY running under Ubuntu MATE
Developer(s)	Simon Tatham
Initial release	January 8, 1999; 25 years ago
Stable release	0.81 / 15 April 2024
Repository	git.tartarus.org?p=simon%2Fputty.git ;
Written in	C
Operating system	Microsoft Windows, ReactOS, macOS, Linux
Type	Terminal emulator
License	MIT Licence
Website	www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

PuTTY (/ˈpʌti/)^[4] is a free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection. It can also connect to a serial port. The name "PuTTY" has no official meaning.^[5]

PuTTY was originally written for Microsoft Windows, but it has been ported to various other operating systems. Official ports are available for some Unix-like platforms, with work-in-progress ports to Classic Mac OS and macOS, and unofficial ports have been contributed to platforms such as Symbian,^[6]^[7] Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.

PuTTY was written and is maintained primarily by Simon Tatham, a British programmer.

Features

PuTTY supports many variations on the secure remote terminal, and provides user control over the SSH encryption key and protocol version, alternate ciphers such as AES, 3DES, RC4, Blowfish, DES, and public-key authentication. PuTTY uses its own format of key files – PPK (protected by Message Authentication Code).^[8] PuTTY supports SSO through GSSAPI, including user provided GSSAPI DLLs. It also can emulate control sequences from xterm, VT220, VT102 or ECMA-48 terminal emulation, and allows local, remote, or dynamic port forwarding with SSH (including X11 forwarding). The network communication layer supports IPv6, and the SSH protocol supports the zlib@openssh.com delayed compression scheme. It can also be used with local serial port connections.

PuTTY comes bundled with command-line SCP and SFTP clients, called "pscp" and "psftp" respectively, and plink, a command-line connection tool, used for non-interactive sessions.^[9]

PuTTY does not support session tabs directly,^[10] but many wrappers are available that do.^[11]

History

PuTTY development began late in 1998,^[1] and was a usable SSH-2 client by October 2000.^[12]^[13]

Components

PuTTY consists of several components:

PuTTY: the Telnet, rlogin, and SSH client itself, which can also connect to a serial port
PSCP: an SCP client, i.e. command-line secure file copy. Can also use SFTP to perform transfers
PSFTP: an SFTP client, i.e. general file transfer sessions much like FTP
PuTTYtel: a Telnet-only client
Plink: a command-line interface to the PuTTY back ends. Usually used for SSH Tunneling
Pageant: an SSH authentication agent for PuTTY, PSCP and Plink
PuTTYgen: an RSA, DSA, ECDSA and EdDSA key generation utility
pterm: (Unix version only) an X11 client which supports the same terminal emulation as PuTTY

References

^ ^a ^b "git.tartarus.org Git - simon/putty.git/commit". git.tartarus.org. Archived from the original on 21 September 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
^ Simon Tatham (15 April 2024). "PuTTY 0.81 is released". Retrieved 15 April 2024.
^ "PuTTY Licence". Retrieved 8 March 2021.
^ "PuTTY FAQ". www.chiark.greenend.org.uk.
^ "PuTTY FAQ". [PuTTY is] the name of a popular SSH and Telnet client. Any other meaning is in the eye of the beholder. It's been rumoured that 'PuTTY' is the antonym of 'getty', or that it's the stuff that makes your Windows useful, or that it's a kind of plutonium Teletype. We couldn't possibly comment on such allegations.
^ "PuTTY for Symbian OS". s2putty.sourceforge.net.
^ "Forum Nokia Wiki – PuTTY for Symbian OS". Archived from the original on 16 July 2012.
^ "SSH and Transfer Files using Putty Private Key (.ppk)". Archived from the original on 18 May 2021.
^ Barrett, Daniel; Silverman, Richard; Byrnes, Robert (2005). SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide. O'Reilly Media. pp. 577–579. ISBN 9780596008956.
^ "PuTTY wish multiple-connections". www.chiark.greenend.org.uk.
^ (e.g. SuperPuTTY, MTPuTTY, mRemoteNG, WinSSHTerm, PuTTY Manager, PuttyTabs or TWSC (Terminal Window ShortCuts)).
^ "PuTTY FAQ". www.chiark.greenend.org.uk.
^ "PuTTY Change Log". www.chiark.greenend.org.uk.