If you work with SSH connections from windows it is likely that you have installed PuTTY. Well, there is also a version available for Unix systems and binaries for Ubuntu and Debian. Well, in this post, you will learn how to install and use PuTTY on Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 10.
PuTTY is a free application that allows you to make remote connections to any server or computer. Unlike other more advanced solutions, it does so using SSH and Telnet protocols. It is quite popular in Windows environments, and therefore sometimes forgets that there is version for Linux.
At this point, you may wonder what advantages the use of PuTTY brings over the use of the terminal and the SSH command. The truth is that with PuTTY we will have a lot of configurations to customize the connection. And all those configurations are available from a very simple and friendly graphical interface. So, this makes the job easier.
Recently version 0.73 has been released containing many patches that fix previous bugs. In fact, as indicated on the project website, these bugs brought security problems. So this version is very safe to use.
So, let us install it and use it.
Install and use PuTTY on Ubuntu 18.04 / Debian 10
One of the great advantages of PuTTY is that it is included in the official Ubuntu and Debian repositories. So the installation is a command away.
Then, open a terminal session and execute the following command:
:~$ sudo apt install putty
In case you are using Debian and do not have sudo enabled, I recommend you read this post:
How to enable sudo on Debian 10?
When the installation is finished, you can open the application with the following command:
:~$ putty
And you will see the following.
PuTTY comes with a pretty good default configuration. So to start with a connection at once, just enter the IP address or host you want to access. Then, we establish the port and the protocol. Also in this screen we will be able to save the configured session.
Clicking on Open will start the connection. If it is done for the first time, we will be shown a security warning.
Then Xterm will start and you will have to log in. In doing so, you will be able to use the connection.
As I told you at the beginning, PuTTY’s strength is its many options to configure. For example, it will look at the keyboard options we can configure.
Also, we can use a proxy to make the connection.
It is also possible to configure in depth the connection with the SSH protocol.
So, enjoy PuTTY.
Conclusion
PuTTY is one of those applications that can become necessary for daily work with SSH. It is light, fast, efficient and with many configuration options that will make it possible to connect to a server with all the ease and flexibility.
The installation is quite simple especially in Linux, so it is better to have it at hand.
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