Appendix A: PuTTY FAQ
This FAQ is published on the PuTTY web site, and also provided as an appendix in the manual.
- A.1 Introduction
- A.2 Features supported in PuTTY
- A.2.1 Does PuTTY support SSH-2?
- A.2.2 Does PuTTY support reading OpenSSH or
ssh.comSSH-2 private key files? - A.2.3 Does PuTTY support SSH-1?
- A.2.4 Does PuTTY support local echo?
- A.2.5 Does PuTTY support storing settings, so I don't have to change them every time?
- A.2.6 Does PuTTY support storing its settings in a disk file?
- A.2.7 Does PuTTY support full-screen mode, like a DOS box?
- A.2.8 Does PuTTY have the ability to remember my password so I don't have to type it every time?
- A.2.9 Is there an option to turn off the annoying host key prompts?
- A.2.10 Will you write an SSH server for the PuTTY suite, to go with the client?
- A.2.11 Can PSCP or PSFTP transfer files in ASCII mode?
- A.3 Ports to other operating systems
- A.3.1 What ports of PuTTY exist?
- A.3.2 Is there a port to Unix?
- A.3.3 What's the point of the Unix port? Unix has OpenSSH.
- A.3.4 Will there be a port to Windows CE or PocketPC?
- A.3.5 Is there a port to Windows 3.1?
- A.3.6 Will there be a port to the Mac?
- A.3.7 Will there be a port to EPOC?
- A.3.8 Will there be a port to the iPhone?
- A.4 Embedding PuTTY in other programs
- A.5 Details of PuTTY's operation
- A.6 HOWTO questions
- A.6.1 What login name / password should I use?
- A.6.2 What commands can I type into my PuTTY terminal window?
- A.6.3 How can I make PuTTY start up maximised?
- A.6.4 How can I create a Windows shortcut to start a particular saved session directly?
- A.6.5 How can I start an SSH session straight from the command line?
- A.6.6 How do I copy and paste between PuTTY and other Windows applications?
- A.6.7 How do I use all PuTTY's features (public keys, proxying, cipher selection, etc.) in PSCP, PSFTP and Plink?
- A.6.8 How do I use PSCP.EXE? When I double-click it gives me a command prompt window which then closes instantly.
- A.6.9 How do I use PSCP to copy a file whose name has spaces in?
- A.6.10 Should I run the 32-bit or the 64-bit version?
- A.7 Troubleshooting
- A.7.1 Why do I see ‘Fatal: Protocol error: Expected control record’ in PSCP?
- A.7.2 I clicked on a colour in the Colours panel, and the colour didn't change in my terminal.
- A.7.3 After trying to establish an SSH-2 connection, PuTTY says ‘Out of memory’ and dies.
- A.7.4 When attempting a file transfer, either PSCP or PSFTP says ‘Out of memory’ and dies.
- A.7.5 PSFTP transfers files much slower than PSCP.
- A.7.6 When I run full-colour applications, I see areas of black space where colour ought to be, or vice versa.
- A.7.7 When I change some terminal settings, nothing happens.
- A.7.8 My PuTTY sessions unexpectedly close after they are idle for a while.
- A.7.9 PuTTY's network connections time out too quickly when network connectivity is temporarily lost.
- A.7.10 When I
cata binary file, I get ‘PuTTYPuTTYPuTTY’ on my command line. - A.7.11 When I
cata binary file, my window title changes to a nonsense string. - A.7.12 My keyboard stops working once PuTTY displays the password prompt.
- A.7.13 One or more function keys don't do what I expected in a server-side application.
- A.7.14 Why do I see ‘Couldn't load private key from ...’? Why can PuTTYgen load my key but not PuTTY?
- A.7.15 When I'm connected to a Red Hat Linux 8.0 system, some characters don't display properly.
- A.7.16 Since I upgraded to PuTTY 0.54, the scrollback has stopped working when I run
screen. - A.7.17 Since I upgraded Windows XP to Service Pack 2, I can't use addresses like
127.0.0.2. - A.7.18 PSFTP commands seem to be missing a directory separator (slash).
- A.7.19 Do you want to hear about ‘Software caused connection abort’?
- A.7.20 My SSH-2 session locks up for a few seconds every so often.
- A.7.21 PuTTY fails to start up. Windows claims that ‘the application configuration is incorrect’.
- A.7.22 When I put 32-bit PuTTY in
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32on my 64-bit Windows system, ‘Duplicate Session’ doesn't work.
- A.8 Security questions
- A.8.1 Is it safe for me to download PuTTY and use it on a public PC?
- A.8.2 What does PuTTY leave on a system? How can I clean up after it?
- A.8.3 How come PuTTY now supports DSA, when the website used to say how insecure it was?
- A.8.4 Couldn't Pageant use
VirtualLock()to stop private keys being written to disk?
- A.9 Administrative questions
- A.9.1 Would you like me to register you a nicer domain name?
- A.9.2 Would you like free web hosting for the PuTTY web site?
- A.9.3 Would you link to my web site from the PuTTY web site?
- A.9.4 Why don't you move PuTTY to SourceForge?
- A.9.5 Why can't I subscribe to the putty-bugs mailing list?
- A.9.6 If putty-bugs isn't a general-subscription mailing list, what is?
- A.9.7 How can I donate to PuTTY development?
- A.9.8 Can I have permission to put PuTTY on a cover disk / distribute it with other software / etc?
- A.9.9 Can you sign an agreement indemnifying us against security problems in PuTTY?
- A.9.10 Can you sign this form granting us permission to use/distribute PuTTY?
- A.9.11 Can you write us a formal notice of permission to use PuTTY?
- A.9.12 Can you sign anything for us?
- A.9.13 If you won't sign anything, can you give us some sort of assurance that you won't make PuTTY closed-source in future?
- A.9.14 Can you provide us with export control information / FIPS certification for PuTTY?
- A.9.15 As one of our existing software vendors, can you just fill in this questionnaire for us?
- A.9.16 The
sha1sums/sha256sums/ etc files on your download page don't match the binaries.
- A.10 Miscellaneous questions