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PuTTY 0.61 Released 184

Posted by Soulskill from the what's-old-is-new dept.
drmacinyasha writes "Simon Tatham announced Tuesday the official release of PuTTY 0.61 after four years of development. It brings a number of bug fixes and improvements, such as GSSAPI SSH-2 authentication, significantly faster SSH key exchanges, and even support for Windows 7's jump lists. Downloads are available from the project's homepage."
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PuTTY 0.61 Released More

PuTTY 0.61 Released

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  • Link (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Goaway ( 82658 )

    ...and still no clickable links.

    • Re:Link (Score:4, Informative)

      by bamf ( 212 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @05:38AM (#36746372)

      Use Kitty [9bis.com] instead. Having said that, clickable links don't always work correctly.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 )

        Use Kitty instead. Having said that, clickable links don't always work correctly.

        That is, unfortunately, true of pretty much everything that Kitty provides as a value-add for Putty. Everything almost, but not quite, works. I really, really wanted to like Kitty (it adds a ton of neat features to Putty), but after about two weeks of frustration I went back to Putty.

  • Four years (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Shouldn't that make it PuTTY 12.9.9 at least?

    • Re:Four years (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mcvos ( 645701 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @06:54AM (#36746710)

      That's what I thought. Wasn't PuTTY release-ready 10 years ago? At this pace, by the time they make an official 1.0 release, it's already obsolete.

      • 1.0 is when the architect (-slash-developer) thinks it does everything he originally set out for the application to do. Increments are fixes and minor features. Major version increment is when the architect thinks it does everything he set out for that version.

        THAT is how version numbers work, not "oooh, the competition is already up to 9.0 and we're still 3.6, let's bump it up with a few bugfix releases".

        0.x does not mean it's going to be obsolete or even unstable, just that it doesn't do everything it was

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mcvos ( 645701 )

          Original vision? Lots of software never meets the original vision, especially if it comes from a particularly visionary person.

          Most software actually uses release numbers like this:

          1.0: It's good enough to release. It's not a test version anymore. It's not too buggy, and all the vital features are in it. Though there could still be a lot of room for improvement.
          + 0.1: New features were added.
          + 0.0.1: Bugfix release.
          2.0: Thorough redesign. A significant departure from 1.0.

          I appreciate your jab at Mozilla's r

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        Why does that matter? Don't tell me you're one of those waiting for it to turn 1.0 to use it.

        You want to see whether something is OK to use you look at the source code, if that's not available or practical, you look at the track record, release notes, past/unfixed vulnerabilities, and "word of mouth". And you see how often you can get it to crash[1].

        You certainly don't use the version number.

        [1] Putty does crash, esp if you use the tunnelling stuff a lot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mcvos ( 645701 )

          I don't wait for 1.0, I just think it's silly to keep something in perpetual beta. Though that does seem to be the thing to do, nowadays.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by TheLink ( 130905 )
            But it's not that stable yet. If you use it to tunnel browser proxy connections, from time to time you'll notice it crashing.

            Whereas I don't recall the openssh client crashing on me.

            It doesn't bother me that much, the hackers would be better off targeting web browsers.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It is PuTTY after all, not Firefox or Chrome. It's not a case of hype-driven development. It's about providing the best product possible, rather than goofing around with hyperinflated version numbers.

      I liken it to the quiet employee who doesn't dress with the fanciest clothes nor boast constantly, but rather gets his work done efficiently and effectively. It turns out he has an absolutely massive penis, like in excess of 12" long. When hung like that, one doesn't need to act powerful, like all of the manage

      • It is PuTTY after all, not Firefox or Chrome. It's not a case of hype-driven development. It's about providing the best product possible, rather than goofing around with hyperinflated version numbers.

        I liken it to the quiet employee who doesn't dress with the fanciest clothes nor boast constantly, but rather gets his work done efficiently and effectively. It turns out he has an absolutely massive penis, like in excess of 12" long. When hung like that, one doesn't need to act powerful, like all of the managers and executives with micropenises. When one has a pecker that huge, one inherently is powerful.

        LOL let me guess you are quiet at work, dress boringly and don't boast much?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by allanw ( 842185 )
        Well that took an unexpected turn.

  • I'd love to get PuTTY ssh/scp functions integrated directly into PowerShell. Instead of a separate PuTTY GUI, just use PowerShell as the shell to connect to remote hosts with PuTTY, and file transfer with scp.

    • Re:PowerShell Integration? (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @05:41AM (#36746386) Journal
      Why not just install OpenSSH? Then you can run the ssh and scp command-line tools as normal. If you install Cygwin, they're probably there already. The advantage of PuTTY is that it includes its own terminal emulator, which is important because the Windows one sucks (or, did when I last used Windows - Win2K - it may be better now).

      • Re:PowerShell Integration? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bmo ( 77928 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @05:48AM (#36746416)

        The thing about Putty is that it's a self contained executable, which means you can throw it on the flash drive that's already hanging from your key ring. No need for cygwin or whatever. Nothing to install on the host system.

        Some of us have full Linux distributions there and various Windows tools for fixing busted Windows machines.

        Where's yours?

        --
        BMO

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )

          Some of us have full Linux distributions there and various Windows tools for fixing busted Windows machines. Where's yours?

          I haven't used Windows since 2003, so I have no more need for a flash drive for fixing them than I have a need for a smithy to make replacement horse shoes.

          • Some of us have full Linux distributions there and various Windows tools for fixing busted Windows machines. Where's yours?

            I haven't used Windows since 2003, so I have no more need for a flash drive for fixing them than I have a need for a smithy to make replacement horse shoes.

            Funny - I know loads of people who still need a "smithy to make replacement horseshoes"

            • And, if they do, then I'd expect them to have one - or, at least, the use of one. I wouldn't expect them to go around expecting everyone else to have one too.

              • Well, right or wrong, perception of perfect strangers is based on "playing the odds", and the overwhelming majority of slashdotters use Windows, even if they hate it. So you are the exception, which I'm sure you realize.

                So, bringing it back to blacksmithing, yeah, most people here have horses.

                You really don't need us to confirm your fundamental superiority; you do a fine job of that by yourself.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jabjoe ( 1042100 )
          That is how I do still use PuTTY from time to time. When it's not your machine, it's polite to only use PuTTY rather than install anything, and if you don't have admin, it's the only option. But I don't often do this, I use cygwin+mintty as preference, like on my work machine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by defaria ( 741527 )
          You can also throw Cygwin on a thumb drive. With Cygwin you get not only ssh but ftp, bash, perl, X, etc. and all of them are designed to work together just like Linux.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jeng ( 926980 )

          So which tools do you think that somebody should have on their flash drive?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by bmo ( 77928 )

            Putty
            Cygwin
            Knoppix
            CCleaner
            Hijack This
            Malwarebytes
            A virus scanner running under Knoppix even if only to demonstrate to the owner of said computer that it is truly and fully fucked.
            A Windows password reset tool
            A backup program (this can be under Knoppix)
            Gparted
            Tools for killing Koobface
            Windirstat - "my drive is full and I don't know why"

            Etc.

            A lot of that stuff is for people who insist "don't format the machine"

            The real way to fix a Windows machine is to nuke and pave, as argued here: http://technet.microsoft. [microsoft.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabjoe ( 1042100 )
        I find the PuTTY terminal isn't much better. Mintty is the best I found for Windows. Shame it's not like Guake, but stuff I found to do that on Windows hasn't been functional.

        • What's particularly good about guake, except the quick hide/show? I just installed it (admittedly 0.4.1) and it doesn't seem particularly exciting, although I can see the value if you only occasionally do terminal work and/or only have one screen.

          What am I missing?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pmontra ( 738736 )
        When I was still using Windows as a desktop client I liked the way Putty gave me a quite good ssh experience. It's worse than openssh but it was the best one you could get on Windows. I'm still recommending it to people that work on Windows. It's much easier for them that using Cygwin or migrating to Linux as I did.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bertok ( 226922 )

        There are benefits to a native PowerShell module, like discoverability, tab-complete, strong-typing, support for common and preference parameters, session variables (e.g.: "trust this SSH key for this session only"), object-oriented result sets, and a bunch of other things.

        The elegant way to support SCP in PowerShell would be to write a PowerShell virtual filesystem provider [microsoft.com]. This would allow scripts to use all of the built-in PowerShell commands on the remote filesystem as if they were normal mounted drive

      • Cygwin + openSSH + minTTY is an utter godsend on windows; minTTY is the best terminal emulator I've used on windows by a long shot and IMHO knocks the one included with putty into a cocked hat.

        Why MS chose to use the same god-awful terminal for their all-singing all-dancing powershell is beyond me.

        http://code.google.com/p/mintty/ [google.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabjoe ( 1042100 )
          Here here!

          I didn't know Powershell still uses the crap default terminal!
          Haven't gone near it as I'm happy with cygwin and MinTTY, plus I try and avoid Windows specific stuff.

          • Here here!
            I didn't know Powershell still uses the crap default terminal!

            PowerShell is a "hostable" shell, meaning that it can be integrated into a host (.NET) application and directly share in-memory objects and hook into the host user interface. PowerShell comes with two apps for hosting it: The PowerShell console and the ISE (Integrated scripting environment). What you are referring to as the "crap default terminal" is probably the PowerShell console. I don't know why it is crap, though. If you are thinking lack of SSH, PowerShell has a much more elegant and hassle-free way t

            • It's crap because it's hosted in the same old cmd.exe that MS has shipped for years and shares many of it's default behaviours.

              * You can't resize it
              ** You can resize the window smaller, but the actual terminal stays the same size
              * It doesn't do copy-on-select, only copy-on-right-click
              ** This is very annoying when you are used to copy-on-select and middle-click to paste from other environments
              * Doesn't support all the keyboard shortcuts that you're used to on other terminals
              ** Is it possible to add some of t

              • Some bash features you may be interested in...

                to go to the previous recently accessed folder : cd -
                (yes, this is much less than what you asked for, but that much is already there)

                to show your recent commands : history N
                where N is how many commands to display. It is fairly easy to copy/paste the command you want to run/edit from there.

                T

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by theCoder ( 23772 )

                * Support for cd -N ; where N is a number from the stack of folders recently accessed, also cd - cd + to move up and down stack

                I'm not sure I'd want the shell to always remember all my directories -- I probably go into a lot of directories over the life of a shell. Maybe with a limit, like the last 10 directories.

                But you can already do this to some extent with the existing directory stack using pushd and popd. I usually alias pd to pushd so it's as convenient as cd. Then you just pd into a directory.

                As t

              • * You cannot resize it *dynamically*. You can most certainly set the size to something different using the properties. You can also set the window and buffer sizes from script.

                * It does copy-on-. Set it to use "quick edit" mode. You can set it on the shortcut as a default

                * Which keyboard shortcuts?
                ** Are you thinking of the PowerTab extension (http://powertab.codeplex.com/). That surely is impressive.
                ** Yes, the powershell ui can be customized.

                * Operations do odd things?
                ** Check your $OutputEncoding. Defaul

            • If you are thinking lack of SSH, PowerShell has a much more elegant and hassle-free way to remotely execute scripts, commands, functions and even remote jobs and events.

              Clearly I need to know more about powershell, since I haven't found anything remotely like that in it. Can you toss me a few links or some examples?

              Using SSH, I can execute massive, intricate processes that interoperate across multiple hosts running multiple operating systems with perfect forward security, and I can do this right from my he

              • Clearly I need to know more about powershell, since I haven't found anything remotely like that in it. Can you toss me a few links or some examples?

                The Invoke-Command (built-in alias icm) takes -Session and/or -Computer parameters. If you invoke a command like
                icm {ps} -cn host1,host2,host3

                * You are simultaneously executing the ps command on several hosts.

                * The results are marshalled back to your current console, but a property (hostname) is added to each returned item (remember, pipelines are object-oriented in PS) so that your script can tell the results apart.

                * Authentication and authorization and encryption is automatic (no need to exchange SSL keys

                • Your post was very informative and interesting; thanks for taking the time to write it up.

                  I'm wondering about this part, though:

                  * Authentication and authorization and encryption is automatic (no need to exchange SSL keys).

                  If you are saying you can use powershell to execute commands on any windows box without any setup or configuration of authentication and authorization by that box's owner, that does not sound desirable at all! And it would be a big surprise, too, since I spend hundreds of hours every year

      • Cygwin comes with a port of rxvt, which is much better than windows cmd. Works well with ssh and screen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mchawi ( 468120 )

      You can use PowerShell and plink to write PowerShell scripts. You can login to a router, run commands, go into enable mode and tftp off a backup for instance.

      You can also do something semi-dynamic by dumping the output to a script file with PowerShell and using plink to run the commands in the script file.

      Not a built-in cmdlet, but you can still accomplish what you want pretty easily.

  • Thanks! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @05:39AM (#36746376)

    The authors would be millionaires if they charged for this. I see this software used many many places, so thanks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ... or it could be so frequently used just because it's free and open? There are plenty of commercial SSH alternatives if you want those.

      • Yeah, there are some things that products like SecureCRT just do better then PuTTY. Like a tabbed interface, better session management, the ability to do XMODEM/ZMODEM file transfers without switching over to WinSCP. Better logging capability, better interface for working with session profiles, etc.

        I use both PuTTY and SecureCRT, but spend 90% of my time in SecureCRT.

        (Note - I haven't yet looked at what PuTTY 0.61 improved upon.)

    • The authors would be millionaires if they charged for this. I see this software used many many places, so thanks.

      I use PuTTY every day. So thanks as well.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      Or even offered a donation link! I don't use it much any more (most machines I'm on are running linux or solaris)... but I'd donate just because of how much I used it in the past!

      I love how low-key the whole thing is. It's like, a hugely ubiquitous tool that's been around (and still works) for like a decade... and it doesn't even have it's own domain! Any other project with even half the success of putty would be selling tshirts and cups and have spots at conventions by now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jgrahn ( 181062 )

        I love how low-key the whole [putty] thing is. It's like, a hugely ubiquitous tool that's been around (and still works) for like a decade... and it doesn't even have it's own domain!

        It's like things *should* work. One task, one long-term goal, well executed. No need to make it a bloody *carnival*.

    • Putty is not very good compared to SecureCRT or the SSH.com client. It lacks advanced features they have, doesn't have nearly as nice a user interface, is not often updated, and so on.

      The reason people use it is the price. It is a usable SSH client and it costs nothing. That makes it desirable. However that doesn't mean it would compete if it cost money.

  • Much nicer console and gives just standard command line ssh, which is all I want/need. I stopped using Putty years ago...
    During the heavy snow in the UK, I was regularly checking how bad it was at home with:

    ssh user@server "ffmpeg -r 15 -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -f matroska pipe:" | ffplay pipe

    Which is exactly what I would have done if my work machine was Linux not Windows. Guess it depends what you want a ssh client on Windows for.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Cygwin is an horrendous suite to work with. Really. Just go look at how you're supposed to guarantee what version of the Cygwin DLL your applications end up using (Hint: Delete any cygwin1.dll that's not in the System directory and hope-to-god that's the most up-to-date). It can't even co-reside with itself so the second you load up a Cygwin app it's a gamble as to what version of the DLL it will find / use and whether it's even compatible any more, and what it'll do to applications you run later on. I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabjoe ( 1042100 )
        Your right, I don't develop with cygwin. I just use it as a user. Anything I install, I install from it's repositories, and so far, it's always worked fine. I have compiled one or two things with it, and that's all just worked like it was a real Unix. This doesn't negate what you are saying, but I'm using it as an isolated environment and not trying to redistribute anything. If I did, I would try to redistrubute through the package management system, so may not hit the issues you have. But perhaps the repos
        • I've been using cygwin for almost its entire lifetime. It has pluses and minuses. For the most part using the rxvt shell lets me feel like I'm on a proper computer, except when I do some file operation that hangs cygwin for 30 seconds, or windows is under load and it takes 30 seconds to get a command prompt. Maybe mintty will solve some of the cygwin problems I have - I'll try it when I go to work tomorrow. But as a person who spends all day at work every day logged into multiple random customer servers

  • nice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @05:58AM (#36746454) Journal

    putty makes the world work. I spend 90% of my day in putty... ssh-ed from a Windows box to various Linux boxes. It has never crashed.
    I also love the download page where you can grab just the .exe by http or ftp. If only everything else could be so perfect and simple.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sparkz ( 146432 )
      I hugely prefer to work in GNOME, but when forced to use MS Windows, PuTTY is the only thing that makes it bearable!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I hugely prefer to work in GNOME, but when forced to use MS Windows, PuTTY is the only thing that makes it bearable!

        Funny that I'm the opposite - I detest working at a Linux desktop - just so many things are "off" graphics wise (bad fonts?) that it turns me off. Much prefer working on Linux using SMB sharing my project code and through SSH I do my builds and such. My "native" setup uses Cygwin with OpenSSH, but in a pinch I use PuTTY (usually when it's someone else's machine) purely because it's sma

  • Simon Tatham is my hero (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I don't always run Windows, but when I do, I prefer PuTTY

  • Puzzles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gringer ( 252588 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @06:47AM (#36746680)

    And for those people who don't have the intellectual desire to tinker away at a shell, Simon Tatham has a few puzzles for you:

    http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/ [greenend.org.uk]

    I accept no responsibility for loss of work months due to the use of these puzzles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      They're also nice in that they're MIT licensed, and available on all sorts of platforms, including iOS (PuzzleManiak is probably one of the better ports), Android, Symbian and others.

      So it's really kinda dangerous for all platforms.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nadaou ( 535365 )

          apt-get install sgt-puzzles

  • Downloading the exe for putty got me v .60 - i then went back to look closer... the installer got me .61 but I didnt get any options on what all i wanted to install so I got everything.
  • My search for a good version of tabbed putty still continues. Currently I'm using Superputty [google.com]. Unfortunately, it is far from a finished product - the main problems being lack of proper keyboard shortcuts and non-regain of focus on maximize/minimize.

    If someone knows a good tabbed putty version, my life would become a lot simpler.

    • I have not tried it myself, but I've read that a lot of people use PuTTY Connection Manager:

      http://puttycm.free.fr/cms/ [puttycm.free.fr]

      It is only for Windows and requires .Net framework to be installed, which turns some people off.

      • I've tried it myself and found it to be horribly buggy/unstable! At least I can work on Superputty without worrying that it'll crash any moment.

  • In SecureCRT [vandyke.com] (even non-secured one), I use its sz and rz for Zmodem file transfers. I don't need to load up SFTP, SCP, etc. especially when in a hurry.

    FYI, it is already in the wishlist [greenend.org.uk], but it is years old and low priority. Le PuTTY [sourceforge.net] exists, but it is an ugly hack and old (last updated in 2006). :(

    • I love SecureCRT, but I just can't bring myself to spend $99 on a SSH client. I am currently using an older version because my "1 year of updates" is long over, but I greatly prefer its interface to PuTTY. Don't get me wrong, PuTTY is a very nice program that I use on computers where my old SecureCRT isn't installed, but honestly they aren't in the same league (of course, PuTTY is free, extremely portable due to not needing to be installed, and is a solid program).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        Ditto. I still use v3.4.8. What version do you still use?

        Check out that Le PuTTY. It's Z-Modem transfer feature isn't too bad. Just ugly. Uploading doesn't update correctly in real-time.

      • I'm still using 5.2 SecureCRT (or something from the 5.x era).

        Personally, since I spent a few hours each day in terminal windows, SecureCRT is worth the cost.

        But not worth upgrading every year. I only upgrade every few years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DavidTC ( 10147 )

      I personally find the idea of using the same product for ssh and scp a little baffling.

      Seriously, that's what WinSCP or Filezilla is for.

      Although, frankly, I don't really understand why people appear to be copying files so much.

      • Some things are easier to do on a GUI desktop with a mouse, such as diff tools. So unless you run an X server locally, or remote into the server, it's easier to bring the files down locally and work on them.

  • PuTTY web design (Score:3)

    by tehcyder ( 746570 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @11:00AM (#36749598) Journal
    I love opening a web page that is just a black serif-font text on a white background and a few blue hyperlinks.

    Seriously. It is so much easier on the eye than Web 2.0 pastel grey on slightly dark grey with blue-grey borders and green-grey highlighting of links (or whatever slashdot is using today)

    • I believe Knuth's answer is black (or by his own webpage an orange-ish brown) on pastel yellow.

  • I see the changelog has a note about a fix for the Serial interface.. hurrah!

  • Smooth scrolling would be a feature I'd love to see in some terminal emulator. AFAIK no current software implements it. As you might know, some old hardware terminals had this feature where new lines would appear "smoothly", scanline-by-scanline on the screen. Maybe Compiz would also help here to make it slick.

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