Today, I will be talking about how I use putty, I use putty to connect to any Linux box I need access to from windows. To get started using putty search Google for "putty". Just download putty.exe along with puttygen.exe (we will use this one later). Put-y both exe's in your "Program Files" directory. Press WindowsKey-pause/break or open up "system" from the control panel. (Note: WindowsKey hereafter just "win" refers to the button on the keyboard with a windows logo on it. Also, a dash between two keys means to hold down the first, strike the second, and then release both). Go to advanced tab (XP) or Advanced system settings (Vista). At the bottom of this tab, click the button labeled "Environment Variables" on the BOTTOM of the new window (labeled "System Variables") scroll down to the variable labeled "Path" and select it. Click Edit (or press alt-I) and append to the end of "Variable Value:" the following line: ;C:Program Files Click ok, ok, ok. Now, type win-R, type putty, and press enter. bham! Putty opens. Now, we will change the default settings to be useful. On the left menus, click (under terminal) "Bell", click "none (bell disabled)" unless you like hearing a ding every time you scroll down and try to go past the end of a doc. On the left menus, click "Window". Change lines of scroll back to 400 if you think you may cat a large file and want to look at a lot of lines, if not, don't. On the left again, click Appearance. If you are in vista change the default font to "Consolas", it's more prettier. Change any other settings you think would look cool. Slide down (On the left again click) to Behavior. Check "Window closes on ALT-F4", "System menu appears on ALT-Space", "Full screen on Alt-Enter", and, if you like, add something in the title text box. Slide down to colors and change any background, foreground, or text colors you like. I prefer black background and green text, but that is specified in my bash profile, so I leave things to default. Slide on down to Data. This box called "login details" is changeable now if you have the same username for every Linux box you log on to. I don't so I.m leaving it alone for now. Run back up to the top of the categories box and click session, click the save button (halfway down on right) Now, we're ready to set up for connecting to a specific box, say... fire. In Host Name (top right) type in: fire.ecs.baylor.edu Make sure the port is 22 and the connection type is SSH. In the saved sessions type fire (or something simple) Now, slide down to Connection-Data (remember over there on the left) click in the auto-login username box and type your UNIX username (you last name, or a variation of normally). Run back up to the top of category and click session again. Click "Save" over on the right. Now click open! You should have a box brought up that automagiclly puts in your name and just asks for a password. Crazy cool. (leave this connected window open) But... what if we could make our passwords really complex, so complex that we didn't really remember them ever, or need to. It would keep the thousands of people that try to break into our Linux systems less likely to gain entry, and just increase general security. Sounds good to me! Thus, steps in the public/private key system and puttygen. Press win-R type puttygen. Click the generate button, and wiggle your mouse over the blank area on the top half of the screen. Great, you've got a public and private key, what do they do? Ask wiki about Public-key_cryptography, it's a good article. Now if you're lazy and have a physically secure computer you don't really need to enter a passphrase for your key, which means that you'll never have to type a password to connect to the Linux server (pretty awesome!) just make sure your computer has a password on it... If it's a laptop or something go ahead and passphrase it. Save both keys, and save them to a directory that's unlikely to be found by a quick 5 minute search of your file tree (to help prevent people from trying to steal them if they have a few minutes access to your computer. (Just you remember where you put them). Alright, up on the top of that window there's a bunch of random letters, highlight all of that text and copy it to the clip board. Alt-tab on over to your connected putty window. type: cd vim .ssh/authorized_keys Then, press 'i' and move the mouse anywhere on the putty screen and click the right mouse button. Next, press Escape and then type :wq then enter. you my now type exit to quit this putty session. Now, go ahead and win-R, putty, and click fire in your saved sessions and then load. Slide down to SSH and expand it so that you can click "Auth", here's where the magic happens. Click browse under the "Private key file for authentication:" label and locate your private key, it ends in ".ppk". Now run back up and click Session then save. Now, just to show you have neat this is, close putty. Press win-R and type: putty -load fire Press Enter, and if you didn't have a passphrase, in a few seconds you'll be connected to the Linux server without a password, and with a fully functioning and useful putty window. If you want to see a lot of your text just press alt-enter. You prolly have to use the alt key on the left, Linux likes distinguishing between left and right, or just doesn't know that the right sided one exists. Rinse and repeat for any other Linux machines you have. |
