A free, open-source terminal application, PuTTY Download is easily customizable and highly configurable. Apart from the basic serial terminal communications, SSH, telnet and rlogin, it can also initiate secure file transfers via SCP and SFTP. Additionally, PuTTY acts as a secure SSH tunnel for X11 traffic.
A powerful SSH and Telnet client
PuTTY can be run on a Microsoft Windows machine to connect to a (for example) Unix machine or other cross-platform integrations.Simply put, It gives you a window, where anything you type goes straight to a Unix machine.
Anything that the Unix machine sends back is displayed on the window, thereby allowing you to get access to a console remotely.
Easy set up
Once you set up PuTTY, the clean and simple interface reveals a comprehensive configuration pane. It allows you to manage and customize connections and sessions alongside the window and the terminal.
Users can choose from several connection types, such as telnet, raw, rlogin, serial and SSH, to set logging options for a specific session.
The terminal
The terminal section refers to line discipline, remote-controlled printing and several general settings. The comprehensive features available make PuTTY one of the most popular terminal applications.
Users can easily set alarms, keyboard actions, and use advanced features to tweak the behavior, colors and appearance of the window.
The Connection area in PuTTY offers customization options for Internet Protocol version, Terminal and Login details, Proxy type, Low-level TCP connections, Environment variables and several other protocol-specific adjustments.
Once you’ve successfully set up the connection, you can use the resources of a remote computer in a matter of seconds. Several IT professionals need to get remote access to computers on a daily basis.
Where can you run this program?
Originally written and developed for Microsoft Windows, PuTTY can be ported to several other operating systems.
Currently, official ports are easily available for Unix-like platforms. There has been a lot of talk about releasing PuTTY for macOS and Classic Mac OS. Some unofficial ports have also been released for other platforms, such as Windows Phone, Windows Mobile and Symbian.
Is there a better alternative?
PuTTY is one of the most popular SSH clients for Microsoft Windows. The easy-to-use interface and small size make it quite popular among IT professionals. Having said that, you can still choose from a wide range of options available. Here’s a brief overview of 3 alternatives for PuTTY.
Should you download it?
Yes, PuTTY is an excellent choice as a terminal application. It’s quite useful for connecting to switches and routers (via SSH, telnet and serial connections), and mainframes and *Nix servers, which can be done via text-only terminal sessions.
If you’ve been working with X11 over the public internet, PuTTY can effectively tunnel your sessions using SSH, thereby protecting sensitive data.IT professionals with more demanding needs, such as support for additional protocols and writing macros, should look for some other tool.
But if you’re looking to make common types of connections, PuTTY’s strong feature set won’t cause any trouble. For most IT professionals, PuTTY will be an excellent and sufficient choice.