4.18.2 ‘Don't start a shell or command at all’

If you tick this box, PuTTY will not attempt to run a shell or command after connecting to the remote server. You might want to use this option if you are only using the SSH connection for port forwarding, and your user account on the server does not have the ability to run a shell.

This feature is only available in SSH protocol version 2 (since the version 1 protocol assumes you will always want to run a shell).

This feature can also be enabled using the -N command-line option; see section 3.8.3.13.

If you use this feature in Plink, you will not be able to terminate the Plink process by any graceful means; the only way to kill it will be by pressing Control-C or sending a kill signal from another program.