PuTTY Tips and Tricks

PuTTY is hands-down the best SSH client for Windows. It’s light-weight with a single putty.exe file and nothing else to install.

A while back we wrote about 12 powerful PuTTY software add-ons and explained how PuTTY connection manager can help you to organize PuTTY SSH sessions in tabs.

In this article, let us review 10 awesome native PuTTY tips and tricks that you might have not explored earlier.

If you have not used PuTTY earlier and you have heard only about Silly Putty and Mighty Putty and not the PuTTY software, you may want to download PuTTY software from the official PuTTY download page here before exploring these PuTTY tricks.

PuTTY Trick 1: Delete All PuTTY Sessions Together

When you are swapping an old computer with a new computer, you may end-up transferring all PuTTY sessions to new computer. Once you’ve transferred all PuTTY sessions, execute “putty -cleanup” from the command line as shown below.

C:>putty -cleanup

This will display following warning message. Click on ‘Yes’ to wipe-out all PuTTY session and random seed files from the Windows registry. This is a better process to delete all saved PuTTY sessions from Windows registry instead of deleting one-by-one from the PuTTY session list.

Fig: PuTTY Cleanup Sessions

PuTTY Trick 2: Change Font Size Automatically when Resizing PuTTY Window

By default when you resize a PuTTY window, the font size doesn’t change. Sometimes it would be good if font size decrease when you reduce the PuTTY window size (or) font size increase when you increase the PuTTY window size. For example, when you are running Unix top command, if you try to resize the window, the output will get cut-off in the PuTTY as shown below.

Fig: Partial output truncated during PuTTY window resize

Launch PuTTY -> Select a Session -> Click on Load. From left side tree menu click on Window -> select the “Change the size of the font” under “When window size is resized” section as shown below -> Click on ‘Open’ at the bottom of this window to start the session.

Fig: PuTTY Change the font size automatically

After the above change, start the PuTTY SSH session and login again. Start the Unix top command and try to resize the window. When you reduce the window size, the font size will become smaller and adjust the top command output automatically to fit in the small size screen as shown below.

Fig: Unix top command output not truncated

Note: Instead of automatically adjusting the font size during window resize, you can also set the following options “When window is resized” from the PuTTY configuration window.

• Change the number of rows and columns.
• Change the size of the font. (this is the option we discussed in this tip)
• Change font size only when maximized.
• Forbid resizing completely. (This option can be very helpful, when you don’t want PuTTY window resizing to happen)

PuTTY Trick 3: Change the PuTTY SSH Session Window Title

By default, PuTTY software displays “username@hostname:~” in the PuTTY window title after you login. You can change this to any user-friendly text.

Launch PuTTY -> Select a Session -> Click on Load. From left side tree menu click on Window -> Behavior. On the right panel, in the ‘Window Title’ text box enter the desired windows title as shown below. After this change, make sure to save the session.

Fig: Custom Window Title for PuTTY Session

Load this saved PuTTY SSH session and login again to the server, which will display the new updated window title as shown below.

Fig: PuTTY Session showing user defined custom window title

PuTTY Trick 4: View PuTTY Event log

When you are logged-in to a PuTTY SSH session, right mouse-click on the PuTTY window title, which will display PuTTY menu. Select ‘Event Log’ menu-item, which will display the following PuTTY event log window.

This will be very helpful to debug any PuTTY SSH session issues.

Fig: PuTTY Event Log Display

PuTTY Trick 5: Paste to Clipboard in Rich Text Editor (RTF) Format

Typically when you copy/paste from PuTTY window to a word document, it will paste only in plain text as explained below.

• Login to PuTTY Telnet or SSH session without setting the ‘Paste to clipboard in RTF’ option that was explained below.
• Execute ‘man ssh’ from the command line.
• Copy the first few lines of the man output.
• Launch Microsoft Word and paste the output. You’ll see only the text output without any formatting.

Enable the RTF copy/paste feature in PuTTY software as shown below.

Launch PuTTY terminal -> Select a Session -> Click on Load. From left side tree menu click on Window -> Selection. On the right panel, select the check-box where it says “Paste to clipboard in RTF as well as plain text” as shown in the image below.

Fig: Enable Rich Text Paste to Clipboard in PuTTY

• Login to PuTTY telnet or SSH session after setting the ‘Paste to clipboard in RTF’ option that was explained above.
• Execute ‘man ssh’ from the command line.
• Copy the first few lines of the man output.
• Launch Microsoft Word and paste the output. You’ll see only the text output getting copied with all the format as shown below.

Fig: Rich Text copied from PuTTY to MS-Word with formatting

PuTTY Trick 6. Make PuTTY SSH Session Always Stay On Top

Sometimes when you are running a monitoring session (for example, unix top command), you may want the PuTTY client window to stay on top all the times.

Launch PuTTY terminal -> Select a Session -> Click on Load. From left side tree menu click on Window -> Behavior. On the right panel, click on the check-box where it says “Ensure window is always on top” as shown below.

Fig: PuTTY Window Behavior - Always on Top

After this change, login to the PuTTY FTP or SSH or telnet session. This particular session will always stay on top irrespective of any other application you open in the windows.

PuTTY Trick 7: Launch PuTTY Client In Full Screen Mode

Following are the two methods to launch PuTTY client in full screen mode.

Method 1: When the PuTTY client session is running, right mouse-click on the window title and select ‘Full Screen’ (or)

Method 2: Launch PuTTY -> Select a Session -> Click on Load. From left side tree menu click on Window -> Behavior. On the right panel, click on the check-box where it says “Full Screen on Alt Enter” as shown below.

Fig: Press Alt-Enter for PuTTY Full Screen

After this change, when the PuTTY terminal session is running, press Alt Key + Enter Key to run that particular PuTTY session in full screen.

PuTTY Trick 8: Launch PuTTY Window Maximized by Default

By default when you launch any PuTTY terminal session, it runs in the normal window size. Sometimes you may prefer it to start in a maximized mode. Follow the steps mentioned below.

• Create a new PuTTY windows shortcut.
• Right mouse-click on this windows shortcut and select properties.
• Click on the Run drop-down list and select ‘Maximized’ as shown below.
• Now, anytime you use this PuTTY shortcut to launch any session, it will be displayed in maximized mode by default.

Fig: Open PuTTY in Maximum Window Size

PuTTY Trick 9. Move Putty sessions to another computer

PuTTY stores all the session information in Windows registry. On the source machine, export the PuTTY session registry information as shown below.

C:> regedit /e "%userprofile%\desktop\putty-registry.reg" HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Simontatham

Transfer this putty-registry.reg file from source machine to destination machine.

On the destination machine, import the PuTTY SSH session registry, by right mouse-click on the putty-registry.reg and click on ‘Merge’. This will transfer all the PuTTY session information from one windows system to another.

Fig: Transfer Windows PuTTY Registry to another computer

PuTTY Trick 10: Launch Most frequently Used PuTTY Session Quickly

To launch a most frequently used PuTTY session quickly, follow the steps below.

• Create a new PuTTY windows shortcut
• Rename this shortcut to your favorite name. For example, dev-db.
• Right mouse-click on this shortcut and select properties.
• In the Target field, at the end append “-load putty-session-name” as shown below.
• Now, anytime you click on the dev-db windows shortcut, it will automatically launch the dev-db PuTTY session.

Fig: Launch PuTTY session with one click from command line

PuTTY with 12 Powerful Add-Ons

PuTTY is hands-down the best, free, and lightweight SSH client for Windows. I have provided list of 12 powerful PuTTY add-ons with screenshots, that will solve few shortcomings of the original PuTTY. Play around with these add-ons and choose the one that suites your need.

1. PuTTY Connection Manager

PuTTYCM gives a nice feature to arrange several PuTTY sessions in tabs . While starting PuTTYCM for the first time, you should specify the location of the original PuTTY. This requires .NET 2.0 to be installed on the windows system. Following screen-shot displays three putty sessions in tabs within the same window.

Note: If the PuTTY Connection Manager opens the original PuTTY in a separate window, instead of opening as a TAB, please go to Tools -> Options -> Select the check-box “Enable additional timing for PuTTY capture (ms)” -> set the value to 300 ms. This will open the PuTTY window inside the TAB as shown below.

Fig - PuTTY Connection Manager with multiple Tabs

2. PuTTYcyg

Cygwin users will absolutely love PuTTYcyg. This lets you use PuTTY as a local cygwin terminal. If you use cygwin on your windows, I’m sure you’ll hate the default MS-DOS looking cygwin window. Using PuTTYcyg, you can run cygwin inside PuTTY. I love this add-on and use it for my cygwin on Windows.

On PuTTYcyg, click on cygterm radio button in the Connection type. Enter - (hyphen) in the “Command (use - for login shell“, to connect to the cygwin on the windows laptop using PuTTY as shown below.

Fig - PuTTYcyg with Cygterm option

3. PuTTYtray

Using PuTTYtray, you can minimize the PuTTY window to the system tray on windows. By default, original PuTTY stores the session information in the registry. This is painful, when you want to transfer PuTTY sessions from one laptop to another. In PuTTYtray, there is an additional radio button “Sessions from file” as shown below, that will let you store session information in a file.

Fig - PuTTYtray with “Session from file” option

4. PuttyTabs

PuttyTabs provides a floating bar, that will display the open PuTTY sessions in TABs. Clicking on one of the tabs will bring the respective PuTTY session to the foreground. While starting PuTTYTabs for the first time, you should specify location of the original PuTTY. It reads the windows registry to get all the available PuTTY sessions. This also requires .NET 2.0 to be installed on the windows system. Following screen-shot displays three putty sessions arranged in tab.

Fig - PuTTYTabs with multiple Tabs

5. Quest PuTTY

Quest Software modified the PuTTY to add Active Directory (GSSAPI Kerberos) single sign-on feature. Quest PuTTY uses Microsoft’s Security Service Provider Interface (SSPI), which is Microsoft’s version of the GSSAPI, with which it is wire compatible. This version of PuTTY adds a new menu-item called GSSAPI, under Connection -> SSH, as shown below.

Fig - Quest PuTTY with GSSAPI option

6. Modified PuTTY

This modified PuTTY stores the PuTTY sessions in folder instead of storing it in the registry. If you already have sessions stored in the registry, it will display those also. The sessions stored in registry will be marked as [registry] as shown below. When you create a session using this PuTTY, this creates a sub-folder called session in the same folder where putty.exe is located, to store all the sessions in the file.

Fig - Modified Putty displaying both registry and file sessions

7. PocketPuTTY

PocketPuTTY runs on Windows Mobile 2003/5.0 operating system. After I got my blackberry, I have dumped my Dell Axim that was running on Windows Mobile. So, I have not tried PocketPuTTY myself. If you’ve used PocketPuTTY or other mobile version of PuTTY, please leave your feedback.

Fig - PocketPuTTY for Windows Mobile

8. portaPuTTY

portaPuTTY is a modified version of the PuTTY that stores the session information in a file by default, instead of storing it in the windows registry. The session files are stored under .putty/sessions folder. The .putty folder is created under the same directory where the putty.exe is located.

9. PuTTY Portable

PuTTY Portable is part of PortableApps suite. Use this to launch PuTTY from the USB drive and carry the sessions along with you.

10. PuTTY Launchy Plugin

If you are using Launchy, the open source keystroke launcher for windows, you can use Putty Launchy Plugin, to launch putty sessions from Launchy very easily. i.e you can type “ssh” or “putty” followed by tab or space to list all of your PuTTY sessions. Once you select a particular session, Launchy will automatically launch that particular PuTTY session.

Fig - PuTTY Launchy Plugin. Type ssh followed by tab.

11. PuTTY Session Manager

PuTTY Session Manager will let you organize the PuTTY sessions into folders and assign hotkeys. This requires Microsoft .NET 2.0. Right click on the PSM icon in the system track and select “Session Hotkeys” to assign hot-keys for PuTTY session as shown below.

Fig - PuTTY Session Manager with session hot-key

To create a folder, right click on a particular PuTTY session -> Session Management -> New Folder. To move a existing session to a folder, just drag the session and drop to the corresponding folder.

Fig - PuTTY Session Manager with sessions inside sub-folder

12. PuTTY Command Sender

PuTTYCS is very helpful little tool that can boost your productivity by eliminating repetitive tasks performed on different servers. Using PuTTYCS, you can send a unix command to multiple PuTTY windows at the same time. You can use this to backup files, view log files, start and stop processes, copying file etc., on multiple servers, just by executing the command once, as shown below.

Fig - PuTTYCS sends unix command to multiple PuTTY session