Optimal PuTTY Settings for CS Servers

Hercules is the only Computer Science system that comes configured in the Computing Services download. Select hercules.cs.uregina.ca and click the Load button.

Click the "Terminal->Keyboard" Category

1. Change the "Function keys and keypad" setting to "ESC[n~";
2. Set the "The Backspace key"
   To "Control-? (127)"
   If you plan to test C++ programs, use emacs, or use the older login shells sh or ksh.
   To "Control-H"
   If you wish to use the historically correct setting.

PuTTY allows for mapping the numeric keypad to programmable functions within advanced editors (such as vi/vim/emacs/etc). For most users this is a pain and they would prefer that the numeric keypad act as a numeric pad when "Num Lock" is engaged and as a scroll pad otherwise.

To retain the latter behaviour, select the "Terminal->Features" Category.

1. Select the "Disable application keypad mode" setting
2. Select the "Disable switching to alternate terminal screen" setting.

Some remote applications make use of Line Drawing Characters. These characters make use of 8-bit ASCII characters to define simple line drawing elements. Note that the default use of 8-bit ASCII characters is to provide foreign language accent characters. If you regularly use application(s) that make use of line drawing, and seldom use application(s) that have foreign language accents, then you may wish to change this setting. Note that grader is an application that uses line drawing. If you see a rows or columns of solid block characters on the screen, you may be using an application that has line drawing elements.

Note that this setting can be changed on-the-fly.

The settings that you have made so far are designed to work with a host terminal type that understands these selections.

Select the "Connection->Data" Category. Change the "Terminal-type string" to putty.

If you have a local printer, you can enable it so that you can directly print from host applications to your local printer. Note that you typically do this via "TeraPrint" or the new "PuTTYPrint" applications.

Select the "Terminal" Category. At the bottom of the settings is a drop down box that will display the names of locally known printers. It may also include an option "Print to File" if you have configured such a printer. Select the printer that you wish to use to locally print remote files.

Note that this setting can also be changed in an active terminal session. Right click the PuTTY icon in the title bar and select "Change Settings...".

The long since obsolete physical CRT terminals had the capability to make an alert sound in the event of an error. PuTTY emulates this behavior. However, this behaviour may not be wanted on a PC operating in a communal environment.

To modify this behaviour, select the "Terminal->Bell" Category. For strictly silent operation, select the "Visual bell (flash window)" setting. Alternatively, you could adjust the settings at the bottom of the panel to reduce the frequency of the alarm bell.

Of course, if you are especially proud of your errors, you can also have PuTTY play a sound file of your choice.

Select the "Session" Category and click the Save button.

The first time that you connect to a system, PuTTY will present a "Security Alert" dialog so that you can confirm that you are connecting to the system that you intended to. If you are at all security conscious, confirm that the rsa2 key fingerprint contains the same text as shown. Select the Yes button to permanently accept connections to this host.

See the above comments for the connecting to Hercules. Note that Titan has a different server key than Hercules.