Turbocharge PuTTY with 12 Powerful Add-Ons - Software for Geeks #3
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This article is part of on-going Software For Geeks series. PuTTY is hands-down the best, free, and lightweight SSH client for Windows. I have provided list of 12 powerful PuTTY add-ons with screenshots, that will solve few shortcomings of the original PuTTY. Play around with these add-ons and choose the one that suites your need.
1. PuTTY Connection Manager
PuTTYCM gives a nice feature to arrange several PuTTY sessions in tabs . While starting PuTTYCM for the first time, you should specify the location of the original PuTTY. This requires .NET 2.0 to be installed on the windows system. Following screen-shot displays three putty sessions in tabs within the same window.
Note: If the PuTTY Connection Manager opens the original PuTTY in a separate window, instead of opening as a TAB, please go to Tools -> Options -> Select the check-box “Enable additional timing for PuTTY capture (ms)” -> set the value to 300 ms. This will open the PuTTY window inside the TAB as shown below.
2. PuTTYcyg
Cygwin users will absolutely love PuTTYcyg. This lets you use PuTTY as a local cygwin terminal. If you use cygwin on your windows, I’m sure you’ll hate the default MS-DOS looking cygwin window. Using PuTTYcyg, you can run cygwin inside PuTTY. I love this add-on and use it for my cygwin on Windows.
On PuTTYcyg, click on cygterm radio button in the Connection type. Enter - (hyphen) in the “Command (use - for login shell“, to connect to the cygwin on the windows laptop using PuTTY as shown below.
3. PuTTYtray
Using PuTTYtray, you can minimize the PuTTY window to the system tray on windows. By default, original PuTTY stores the session information in the registry. This is painful, when you want to transfer PuTTY sessions from one laptop to another. In PuTTYtray, there is an additional radio button “Sessions from file” as shown below, that will let you store session information in a file.
4. PuttyTabs
PuttyTabs provides a floating bar, that will display the open PuTTY sessions in TABs. Clicking on one of the tabs will bring the respective PuTTY session to the foreground. While starting PuTTYTabs for the first time, you should specify location of the original PuTTY. It reads the windows registry to get all the available PuTTY sessions. This also requires .NET 2.0 to be installed on the windows system. Following screen-shot displays three putty sessions arranged in tab.
5. Quest PuTTY
Quest Software modified the PuTTY to add Active Directory (GSSAPI Kerberos) single sign-on feature. Quest PuTTY uses Microsoft’s Security Service Provider Interface (SSPI), which is Microsoft’s version of the GSSAPI, with which it is wire compatible. This version of PuTTY adds a new menu-item called GSSAPI, under Connection -> SSH, as shown below.
6. Modified PuTTY
This modified PuTTY stores the PuTTY sessions in folder instead of storing it in the registry. If you already have sessions stored in the registry, it will display those also. The sessions stored in registry will be marked as [registry] as shown below. When you create a session using this PuTTY, this creates a sub-folder called session in the same folder where putty.exe is located, to store all the sessions in the file.
7. PocketPuTTY
PocketPuTTY runs on Windows Mobile 2003/5.0 operating system. After I got my blackberry, I have dumped my Dell Axim that was running on Windows Mobile. So, I have not tried PocketPuTTY myself. If you’ve used PocketPuTTY or other mobile version of PuTTY, please leave your feedback.
8. portaPuTTY
portaPuTTY is a modified version of the PuTTY that stores the session information in a file by default, instead of storing it in the windows registry. The session files are stored under .putty/sessions folder. The .putty folder is created under the same directory where the putty.exe is located.
9. PuTTY Portable
PuTTY Portable is part of PortableApps suite. Use this to launch PuTTY from the USB drive and carry the sessions along with you.
10. PuTTY Launchy Plugin
If you are using Launchy, the open source keystroke launcher for windows, you can use Putty Launchy Plugin, to launch putty sessions from Launchy very easily. i.e you can type “ssh” or “putty” followed by tab or space to list all of your PuTTY sessions. Once you select a particular session, Launchy will automatically launch that particular PuTTY session.
11. PuTTY Session Manager
PuTTY Session Manager will let you organize the PuTTY sessions into folders and assign hotkeys. This requires Microsoft .NET 2.0. Right click on the PSM icon in the system track and select “Session Hotkeys” to assign hot-keys for PuTTY session as shown below.
To create a folder, right click on a particular PuTTY session -> Session Management -> New Folder. To move a existing session to a folder, just drag the session and drop to the corresponding folder.
12. PuTTY Command Sender
PuTTYCS is very helpful little tool that can boost your productivity by eliminating repetitive tasks performed on different servers. Using PuTTYCS, you can send a unix command to multiple PuTTY windows at the same time. You can use this to backup files, view log files, start and stop processes, copying file etc., on multiple servers, just by executing the command once, as shown below.
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Tab’s For Putty.
My dreams have come true.
Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.
Definitely a great resource, I found the puttycyg, putty-launchy-plugin and puttycs quite useful, the rest I have used and found pretty useful too.
Pretty useful list.
I wish the putty interface itself would get better (like enhanced support for arrow keys etc)
QuickPutty is really nice, also.
http://www.deckmyn.org/olivier/software
The screenshot is semi-misleading. It’s basically a list of all of your saved sessions. It can even be transparent, if that’s your thing.
It’s default hotkey is CTRL-M so bringing the list up can be done very quickly.
The list can be stretched as high as needed to show all of your saved sessions and comes in VERY handy when you have a lot of sessions. For example, I probably have over 50 saves sessions (firewall, routers, switches, linux servers, etc) and finding the right one in Putty’s small window becomes cumbersome.
—-
This looks interesting, also:
http://puttysm.sourceforge.net/
It lets you organize your sessions. RIght now, my only option for organizing my sessions is by being strict with my session names. (RTR - RouterA, SWI - Switch 1, LNX - ServerA, ! Davis - Home, etc).
I’ve discovered and fallen in love with Poderosa:
http://www.poderosa.org
Tabbed sessions, completely configurable setups, access to local Cygwin installs, open source (as far as a .net2 application can be), the list is pretty huge.
Pretty nice and usefull list
Bad, that I don’t have admin privileges. Most of the addons are not working…
Nice collection
kudos
I use very often PuTTY for S60, on my Nokia N95. It works like a breeze, and if the 3G network drops, it keeps the session alive, so as soon as the signal comes back it restores the session.
Pocket Putty also works on WM6, in my experience
I use PocketPutty on a regular basis, all features work perfectly on my HTC Touch Pro.
Last time I checked, the socialist sushi build was based on 0.59. The follwing build attributes socialist sushi for the idea but is better maintained and includes the version of putty from which it was forked. The latest release here is from 0.60
http://code.google.com/p/portaputty/
Thanks a lot
puttyCM made my life easy!! Thanks
Thank you a bunch…
@Davis,
Thanks for adding QuickPuTTY to the list.
.
@Jellisii,
Poderosa looks great. Thanks for adding it to the list.
.
@Jon, Herb, CodeBreak,
Thanks for sharing your feedback on the PocketPutty for Windows Mobile.
.
@Kamikaze,
Thanks for pointing out about the PortaPutty in code.google, which is maintained better than the original PortaPutty from Socialist Sushi.
Tab’s plural is “tabs.” Apostrophe-S is possessive, not a plural!
is there any putty MOD has zmodem feature?
mremote is one of the best Putty TAB programs around. it also includes vnc, rdp,http and a bunch of others all in tabs. http://www.mremote.org/wiki/
For a really nice colour scheme in putty try igvita-desert from here http://www.igvita.com/2008/04/14/custom-putty-color-themes/
Hey, speaking of blackberry, any putty-like clients for blackberry you’ve found?
Another fork of putty with great features is kitty. It is really good one.
Here http://www.9bis.net/kitty/
I dunno,
all these C# add-ons make me sick to the stomach - guys, are are trying to enhance pure C application which you have WITH source - if you don’t know how manipulate win32 GUI read on it for chirssakes, don’t break the design idea because you are lazy.
Portable versions are not bad but again - they can’t agree on how to be portable - dumping and restoring registry as the way of portability is the stupidiest idea of all
. Kitty, on the other hand, is pretty close to what I have in mind as ideal client (ideal would be as close to SecureCRT as possible, without crazy price tag.) Add to kitty built-in tabbed session and z-modem (and keep it small - meaning no .NET baggage to make it work) and I would be happy as hell. There is version of putty that can work with external z-modem (leputty on sf.net) but seem to be unmaintained as of now.
I see many people are interested into my software KiTTY. I thank your all for your support. Don’t be worried Al3X: I will never translate KiTTY on C#. I try to keep it the smallest and above all without .NET. I work on improvments when people ask for it (see really new feature: the init script file). So maybe one day you ‘ll have the z-modem feature. About multitab I think the best way is to use a third part soft (personnaly I prefer wintabber) that can swallows KiTTY windows. Don’t be so rude with developpers that “dump and restore registry” to make portable apps :-(. When you don’t control the whole source code, it is the easiest think you can do.
Cyd
@StCredZero,
Thanks for pointing it out. I have corrected it.
@est,
Check-out Le Putty that supports zmodem. Thanks to al3x for pointing this out.
@Dave,
MidPSSH supports blackberry. I have not tried it myself. Once you’ve tried it, please provide your feedback.
@Bin, @al3x,
Thanks for adding KiTTY to the list.
@Cyd,
I didn’t know about KiTTY until Bin and al3x pointed it out. You have developed lot of very nice features on top of PuTTY. KiTTY along with WinTabber sounds like a very good combination. I’ll check it out.
ShellShadow http://shellshadow.com is a “collaborative PuTTY”.
It allows you to manage support technicians without giving them direct login access to your server.
I love you so much right now Ramesh, thanks !
Also dont forget to check it out mREMOTE at http://www.mremote.org is putty rdp vnc and more …. another great freeware tools