Chapter 4: Configuring PuTTY

This chapter describes all the configuration options in PuTTY.

PuTTY is configured using the control panel that comes up before you start a session. Some options can also be changed in the middle of a session, by selecting ‘Change Settings’ from the window menu.

• 4.1 The Session panel
  • 4.1.1 The host name section
  • 4.1.2 Loading and storing saved sessions
  • 4.1.3 ‘Close window on exit’
• 4.2 The Logging panel
  • 4.2.1 ‘Log file name’
  • 4.2.2 ‘What to do if the log file already exists’
  • 4.2.3 ‘Flush log file frequently’
  • 4.2.4 ‘Include header’
  • 4.2.5 Options specific to SSH packet logging
• 4.3 The Terminal panel
  • 4.3.1 ‘Auto wrap mode initially on’
  • 4.3.2 ‘DEC Origin Mode initially on’
  • 4.3.3 ‘Implicit CR in every LF’
  • 4.3.4 ‘Implicit LF in every CR’
  • 4.3.5 ‘Use background colour to erase screen’
  • 4.3.6 ‘Enable blinking text’
  • 4.3.7 ‘Answerback to ^E’
  • 4.3.8 ‘Local echo’
  • 4.3.9 ‘Local line editing’
  • 4.3.10 Remote-controlled printing
• 4.4 The Keyboard panel
  • 4.4.1 Changing the action of the Backspace key
  • 4.4.2 Changing the action of the Home and End keys
  • 4.4.3 Changing the action of the function keys and keypad
  • 4.4.4 Changing the action of the shifted arrow keys
  • 4.4.5 Controlling Application Cursor Keys mode
  • 4.4.6 Controlling Application Keypad mode
  • 4.4.7 Using NetHack keypad mode
  • 4.4.8 Enabling a DEC-like Compose key
  • 4.4.9 ‘Control-Alt is different from AltGr’
• 4.5 The Bell panel
  • 4.5.1 ‘Set the style of bell’
  • 4.5.2 ‘Taskbar/caption indication on bell’
  • 4.5.3 ‘Control the bell overload behaviour’
• 4.6 The Features panel
  • 4.6.1 Disabling application keypad and cursor keys
  • 4.6.2 Disabling xterm-style mouse reporting
  • 4.6.3 Disabling remote terminal resizing
  • 4.6.4 Disabling switching to the alternate screen
  • 4.6.5 Disabling remote window title changing
  • 4.6.6 Response to remote window title querying
  • 4.6.7 Disabling remote scrollback clearing
  • 4.6.8 Disabling destructive backspace
  • 4.6.9 Disabling remote character set configuration
  • 4.6.10 Disabling Arabic text shaping
  • 4.6.11 Disabling bidirectional text display
  • 4.6.12 Disabling bracketed paste mode
• 4.7 The Window panel
  • 4.7.1 Setting the size of the PuTTY window
  • 4.7.2 What to do when the window is resized
  • 4.7.3 Controlling scrollback
  • 4.7.4 ‘Push erased text into scrollback’
• 4.8 The Appearance panel
  • 4.8.1 Controlling the appearance of the cursor
  • 4.8.2 Controlling the font used in the terminal window
  • 4.8.3 ‘Hide mouse pointer when typing in window’
  • 4.8.4 Controlling the window border
• 4.9 The Behaviour panel
  • 4.9.1 Controlling the window title
  • 4.9.2 ‘Warn before closing window’
  • 4.9.3 ‘Window closes on ALT-F4’
  • 4.9.4 ‘System menu appears on ALT-Space’
  • 4.9.5 ‘System menu appears on Alt alone’
  • 4.9.6 ‘Ensure window is always on top’
  • 4.9.7 ‘Full screen on Alt-Enter’
• 4.10 The Translation panel
  • 4.10.1 Controlling character set translation
  • 4.10.2 ‘Treat CJK ambiguous characters as wide’
  • 4.10.3 ‘Caps Lock acts as Cyrillic switch’
  • 4.10.4 Controlling display of line-drawing characters
  • 4.10.5 Controlling copy and paste of line drawing characters
  • 4.10.6 Combining VT100 line-drawing with UTF-8
• 4.11 The Selection panel
  • 4.11.1 Changing the actions of the mouse buttons
  • 4.11.2 ‘Shift overrides application's use of mouse’
  • 4.11.3 Default selection mode
  • 4.11.4 Assigning copy and paste actions to clipboards
  • 4.11.5 ‘Permit control characters in pasted text’
• 4.12 The Copy panel
  • 4.12.1 Character classes
  • 4.12.2 Copying in Rich Text Format
• 4.13 The Colours panel
  • 4.13.1 ‘Allow terminal to specify ANSI colours’
  • 4.13.2 ‘Allow terminal to use xterm 256-colour mode’
  • 4.13.3 ‘Allow terminal to use 24-bit colour’
  • 4.13.4 ‘Indicate bolded text by changing...’
  • 4.13.5 ‘Attempt to use logical palettes’
  • 4.13.6 ‘Use system colours’
  • 4.13.7 Adjusting the colours in the terminal window
• 4.14 The Connection panel
  • 4.14.1 Using keepalives to prevent disconnection
  • 4.14.2 ‘Disable Nagle's algorithm’
  • 4.14.3 ‘Enable TCP keepalives’
  • 4.14.4 ‘Internet protocol version’
  • 4.14.5 ‘Logical name of remote host’
• 4.15 The Data panel
  • 4.15.1 ‘Auto-login username’
  • 4.15.2 Use of system username
  • 4.15.3 ‘Terminal-type string’
  • 4.15.4 ‘Terminal speeds’
  • 4.15.5 Setting environment variables on the server
• 4.16 The Proxy panel
  • 4.16.1 Setting the proxy type
  • 4.16.2 Excluding parts of the network from proxying
  • 4.16.3 Name resolution when using a proxy
  • 4.16.4 Username and password
  • 4.16.5 Specifying the Telnet, SSH, or Local proxy command
  • 4.16.6 Controlling proxy logging
• 4.17 The SSH panel
  • 4.17.1 Executing a specific command on the server
  • 4.17.2 ‘Don't start a shell or command at all’
  • 4.17.3 ‘Enable compression’
  • 4.17.4 ‘SSH protocol version’
  • 4.17.5 Sharing an SSH connection between PuTTY tools
• 4.18 The Kex panel
  • 4.18.1 Key exchange algorithm selection
  • 4.18.2 Repeat key exchange
• 4.19 The Host Keys panel
  • 4.19.1 Host key type selection
  • 4.19.2 Preferring known host keys
  • 4.19.3 Manually configuring host keys
  • 4.19.4 Configuring PuTTY to accept host certificates
• 4.20 The Cipher panel
• 4.21 The Auth panel
  • 4.21.1 ‘Display pre-authentication banner’
  • 4.21.2 ‘Bypass authentication entirely’
  • 4.21.3 ‘Disconnect if authentication succeeds trivially’
  • 4.21.4 ‘Attempt authentication using Pageant’
  • 4.21.5 ‘Attempt TIS or CryptoCard authentication’
  • 4.21.6 ‘Attempt keyboard-interactive authentication’
  • 4.21.7 ‘Allow agent forwarding’
  • 4.21.8 ‘Allow attempted changes of username in SSH-2’
• 4.22 The Credentials panel
  • 4.22.1 ‘Private key file for authentication’
  • 4.22.2 ‘Certificate to use with the private key’
  • 4.22.3 ‘Plugin to provide authentication responses’
• 4.23 The GSSAPI panel
  • 4.23.1 ‘Allow GSSAPI credential delegation’
  • 4.23.2 Preference order for GSSAPI libraries
• 4.24 The TTY panel
  • 4.24.1 ‘Don't allocate a pseudo-terminal’
  • 4.24.2 Sending terminal modes
• 4.25 The X11 panel
  • 4.25.1 Remote X11 authentication
  • 4.25.2 X authority file for local display
• 4.26 The Tunnels panel
  • 4.26.1 Controlling the visibility of forwarded ports
  • 4.26.2 Selecting Internet protocol version for forwarded ports
• 4.27 The Bugs and More Bugs panels
  • 4.27.1 ‘Chokes on SSH-2 ignore messages’
  • 4.27.2 ‘Handles SSH-2 key re-exchange badly’
  • 4.27.3 ‘Chokes on PuTTY's SSH-2 ‘winadj’ requests’
  • 4.27.4 ‘Replies to requests on closed channels’
  • 4.27.5 ‘Ignores SSH-2 maximum packet size’
  • 4.27.6 ‘Discards data sent before its greeting’
  • 4.27.7 ‘Chokes on PuTTY's full KEXINIT’
  • 4.27.8 ‘Old RSA/SHA2 cert algorithm naming’
  • 4.27.9 ‘Requires padding on SSH-2 RSA signatures’
  • 4.27.10 ‘Only supports pre-RFC4419 SSH-2 DH GEX’
  • 4.27.11 ‘Miscomputes SSH-2 HMAC keys’
  • 4.27.12 ‘Misuses the session ID in SSH-2 PK auth’
  • 4.27.13 ‘Miscomputes SSH-2 encryption keys’
  • 4.27.14 ‘Chokes on SSH-1 ignore messages’
  • 4.27.15 ‘Refuses all SSH-1 password camouflage’
  • 4.27.16 ‘Chokes on SSH-1 RSA authentication’
• 4.28 The ‘Bare ssh-connection’ protocol
• 4.29 The Serial panel
  • 4.29.1 Selecting a serial line to connect to
  • 4.29.2 Selecting the speed of your serial line
  • 4.29.3 Selecting the number of data bits
  • 4.29.4 Selecting the number of stop bits
  • 4.29.5 Selecting the serial parity checking scheme
  • 4.29.6 Selecting the serial flow control scheme
• 4.30 The Telnet panel
  • 4.30.1 ‘Handling of OLD_ENVIRON ambiguity’
  • 4.30.2 Passive and active Telnet negotiation modes
  • 4.30.3 ‘Keyboard sends Telnet special commands’
  • 4.30.4 ‘Return key sends Telnet New Line instead of ^M’
• 4.31 The Rlogin panel
  • 4.31.1 ‘Local username’
• 4.32 The SUPDUP panel
  • 4.32.1 ‘Location string’
  • 4.32.2 ‘Extended ASCII Character set’
  • 4.32.3 ‘**MORE** processing’
  • 4.32.4 ‘Terminal scrolling’
• 4.33 Storing configuration in a file