Putty is a free and open source ssh & telnet client. Putty is available for Windows, Linux, Unix and macOS. Using putty, we can access the remote servers and switches over ssh protocol. It can also be used to take serial console of remote systems.
In this article we will demonstrate how to install and use putty on linux desktop.
Putty Installation on Ubuntu / Debian Linux
Open the terminal and run following apt command,
$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install putty-y
Putty Installation on CentOS / RHEL / Fedora
Putty package is available in the default CentOS and RHEL repositories. So, to install putty run
$ sudo yum install putty -y Or $ sudo dnfs install putty -y
Putty Installation on Arch Linux
Putty package is available in default arch linux repositories. So, to install run following pacman command
$ sudo pacman -S putty
Till this point of time, we have installed putty, let’s see it can be used to access remote system.
How to Use putty to access remote system
For the demonstration purpose, I am using putty on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS desktop. To access putty, search putty from dash and then click on its icon.
In the Next window, specify the IP address of remote server and ssh port. Example is shown below:
Now click on ‘Open‘ and in the next window Choose ‘Accept’ to exchange the keys.
Next, it will prompt you to enter User’s password, in my case ‘kadmin’ user password.
Perfect, above confirms that we have successfully connected to our Linux server.
How to Access Public Cloud Linux Server Using Putty
Let’s assume we have a Linux server in AWS cloud, so to connect to a public cloud server we must have ssh keys. Putty accept only ‘. ppk’ extension for ssh keys. In case you have ‘.pem’ format key file then convert it to ppk format using puttyegn tool.
When we install putty then puttygen gets installed automatically. To convert ‘.pem’ to ‘.ppk’ format , run
$ puttygen pkumar-keys.pem -o pkumar-keys.ppk
Once you have the keys, start the putty enter the IP address of your public cloud Linux server and specify the location of your ssh keys file (SSH –> Auth)
Now Go to ‘SSH’ Tab and the click on ‘Auth’ and browse the ssh keys file
Click on Open to connect to your public cloud Linux Server,
Great, above screen confirms that we have successfully ssh to access our Ubuntu Linux server hosted in AWS public cloud. That’s all from this tutorial, please do share your feedback and comments.
Also Read : How to Edit PDF Files in Linux Desktop
Can you guide using Terminal?