How to manage remote Linux access from Windows machine the old way.

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(Edited)

Hello,

TL;DR

A short manual on how to use Putty to connect to a remote Linux server/machine. Most likely an article like any other about this matter but still could be useful.

Why the old way

In the dark time of windows when the console(also called the terminal) was the old and not usable app and every pro user has been using Commander or another replacement, there was no easy way to remote to Linux machines using SSH. At that time most pro users have been using Putty. Now a day there are other easy-to-use options but Putty is still a convenient and visual way to remote access Linux machines.

What is Putty

PuTTY is a free implementation of SSH and Telnet for Windows and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.

So Putty is a set of tools which allows you to create the SSH key and to execute remote access to any machine (Linux and Windows alike) with an SSH server. Putty terminal (a fancy name for the console, that is the app which allows you to operate the operating system by typing the command) was much better than the default console in Windows, far far better. The Putty supports coping by highlighting and past with right-clicking something we have to wait until the middle of the Windows 10 lifecycle to receive. What is more, it did render all content which Linux could.

Why use a public/private key instead of a password

In general, the public/private key pair is safer than a password. In case that server is compromised your password is never leaked as only the public part of the key is stored on the server.

Please remember to create a passphrase to increase the security of the access and to never share the private part of the key

How to install Putty

The most obvious way is to visit the Putty website: https://putty.org/ and just download it.

The easier way might be to use Chocolatey package manager.

How to use Puttygen

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Puttygen is the key generator contained in the putty software package. It has a nice UI to help to generate the keys and to access them later.

To create new private and public key pair just press the "Generate" button and move the mouse until the green bar reaches the end. As a result, you will see something like that:

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From now you can the public/private key to authenticate with remote servers. ** Please be aware that you never share the private key **. You add a public one to any web server to which you want to have "passwordless" access.

How to use Putty

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So the process is simple, you need an address, that is host or IP, of the accessible server. After that you need to specify the private key to authenticate with a server, this option is not so obvious and could be found in the Connection > SSH > Auth > Credentials ni the left-hand part of the configuration screen.

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After adding the private key and setting the host address, you can save the session so next time you will not have to specify any settings any more. Now press Open and you will start the remote session with the server.

I hope you will have a god time using Putty as this is a very good tool.

Posted with STEMGeeks



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