How to Install and Use Putty (SSH Client) on Linux desktop

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.

Access-Putty-Ubuntu-Linux

In the Next window, specify the IP address of remote server and ssh port. Example is shown below:

Connect-Remote-Linux-Server-With-Putty

Now click on ‘Open‘ and in the next window Choose ‘Accept’ to exchange the keys.

Accept-Keys-Putty-Remote-Linux-Server

Next, it will prompt you to enter User’s password, in my case ‘kadmin’ user password.

Access-Remote-Linux-Server-Putty

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)

Public-Cloud-IP-Putty

Now Go to ‘SSH’ Tab and the click on ‘Auth’ and browse the ssh keys file

Browse-PPK-SSH-Keys-public-Cloud-Linux-Putty

Click on Open to connect to your public cloud Linux Server,

Connect-PublicCloud-Linux-Server-PPK-Keys-Putty

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

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