4.22.1 ‘Display pre-authentication banner’

SSH-2 servers can provide a message for clients to display to the prospective user before the user logs in; this is sometimes known as a pre-authentication ‘banner’. Typically this is used to provide information about the server and legal notices.

By default, PuTTY displays this message before prompting for a password or similar credentials (although, unfortunately, not before prompting for a login name, due to the nature of the protocol design). By unchecking this option, display of the banner can be suppressed entirely.