Getting Started with Putty 
What does Putty do?
Putty is a free program that lets you use your PC to make a
Telnet or SSH connection to a Unix-based computer. At
If you plan to use Putty primarily for e-mail, please note
that while some people enjoy using Unix-based mail programs such as Pine, there
are other ways to read e-mail that you may find more intuitive. Please see www.bu.edu/pcsc/email for information
about your e-mail alternatives at
Technically, Putty should be written as “PuTTY” (it’s a geeky pun), but we will refer to it as “Putty” in this document.
How do I decide between SSH and Telnet?
Putty lets you make your connection using either SSH protocol or Telnet protocol. From your computer, these connections look identical, but behind the scenes, there is a big difference. SSH makes an encrypted connection to the remote host and that helps protect you against eavesdropping as information is sent over that connection. Because SSH is more secure than Telnet, we recommend that you always use an SSH connection when connecting to a computer system that supports SSH. Most BU computer systems, including ACS, support SSH.
Where do I get Putty?
Putty is available from the BU software distribution site at www.bu.edu/software/putty or you can download it directly from www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty.
Okay, I’ve installed Putty. Now what do I do?
The instructions below assume you have a pre-configured version of Putty from the BU software site. If you have another version of Putty, you won’t have the same settings files, but these instructions should still help.
- Double-click
on the Putty icon on your desktop, or go to Start->Programs->Putty.
- If you do not see any hosts listed in the lower part of the PuTTY configuration window, then type in your hostname (for example, acs4.bu.edu) and click on your protocol (for example, SSH), then click Open. We recommend SSH for any system that supports it (ACS does). Now skip to Step 5.
- If you see some sessions already listed in the lower part of the Putty configuration window, then you have a pre-configured version of PUTTY or you have previously saved some sessions. Simply click on one of the acs#.bu.edu sessions to connect to ACS. In the example below, we chose acs4.bu.edu. Then click the Load button.
- You will see that the host name and protocol have now been filled in for you. Note that the protocol chosen is SSH, which we recommend for any system that supports it. You could make some settings changes in the left panel if you wanted, but for now, just click Open.
- If this is the first time you have connected to this host from your computer, you may see a message like the one below. If you are connecting to one of the ACS computers, you can be fairly confident that nothing fishy is going on, so click Yes. If you are connecting to an unknown computer, use your best judgment.
- You will now see a prompt that says “Login as”. Type your BU login name and press Enter. For example, if your e-mail address is janedoe@bu.edu, your login name is janedoe.
- Next you are prompted to enter your password. Enter your Kerberos password and press Enter.
- If your login name and password are correct, you will now be logged in. If you are logging on to ACS, you should now see a message that says “Welcome to the ACS Cluster”. You may be prompted to read messages, and you can answer y for yes, n for no or q to quit.
- Now you can go about your business on ACS (or other remote computer). When you are ready to quit, type exit and your session will end.
What if I want to make changes to Putty’s configuration?
Perhaps you don’t like the font size that Putty is using, or some other aspect of its configuration. When you have loaded a session but have not opened it (so you are between Step 2 and Step 3 above), just click on a category on the left side of the screen and make the change on the right side of the screen.
For example, to make a change in the font size you’d go to the left side of the screen and click on Appearance, then click on the Change button on the right and make your font size change.
After you have made your change, click back on Session, at the top of the left panel. You can now click on the Save button if you want to make the change permanent. Then continue to open your session as usual.
Where are the menus?
After you open a Putty terminal session, there are no menus at the top of your screen. To get a menu, right-click (click with your right mouse button) on the session’s title bar, as below. You will get a pop-up menu and can choose the command you want. You’ll see that there is a Change Settings button here, too, so that’s another way to change settings such as font size.
Strange things happen when I right-click – why?
As we saw above, you can right-click on the title bar to get a menu. If you right-click anywhere else in your window, text may appear your screen. That’s because Putty lets you use your left and right mouse buttons as shortcuts for copying and pasting text. If you use your left mouse button to drag over (highlight) any text in your Putty window, that text is automatically copied to the Windows clipboard. Then, the next time you press the right mouse button inside the Putty window, the text is pasted into the window. This shortcut can be quite useful -- once you figure out what is going on.
My host supports SSH1 and not SSH2. How do I tell Putty that?
SSH options are found under the Connection-SSH item on the left side of your screen. Click on SSH, then choose protocol version 1 or 2, depending on which your host uses (ACS supports both). You may need to ask your system administrator about the SSH settings your host prefers.
For more information…
The Putty download site at www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ includes detailed documentation. You can also download a Help file from www.bu.edu/software/putty/ which contains the same information.
Written
by Clare Shawcross