Kudos to Putty developers, answer not necessary
Ronja
ssh to the point where Putty could get started - for a *reliable*
piece of software. I have clearly spent too many years in the
Microsoft world as I had all but forgotten how it feels to leave a
program running overnight or longer and come back and find it still up
and running, without hogging virtual memory and generally just
behaving well without any extra fuss. Thanks!
Details:
I woke up to continue on some work that was left half-way yesterday
and noticed that the Putty terminals to both *nix servers that I had
left open on my laptop were alive and well. And suddenly I was washed
over with such relief and gratitude - there still is software around
that is stable and reliable, that won't crash on you the minute you
turn your back (or earlier), that won't start gobbling up virtual
memory after running more than one hour and that won't *require* an
update every one or two weeks just to stay tolerably functional.
Mostly out of professional necessity (all of my customers use Windows
and MS Office) I have used mainly Windows for the last five years or
so. Before that I used mostly Unix or Linux (my first Unix-like
experience was on a Zilog System 8000 in 1987-88, and it was love at
first sight). This experience with Putty is just one more lately that
makes me more convinced that my next laptop will be Linux-based, and
as much as possible of the software on it will be open-source. Then at
least if something does not work, I have the consolation that a) I did
not pay a cent for it anyway and b) if that particular functionality
really is important for me I can help fix it.
Thanks for making my Sunday morning & happy hacking!
Ronja
www.iki.fi/~ronja/
Todd H.
If you are frequently in need of persistent ssh terminals and don't
want to have to rely on not only the stability of a given ssh client
program but also your network connectivity, you may wonder how you
ever lived without
Gnu Screen
If thenetwork goes down or the client crashes, your screen session
persists and can be reconnected.
To use, just type screen at your *nix prompt (install if necessary).
If you session gets disconnected due to network or other reasons,
just log back into the server and do
screen -r -d
and voila, you're right back where ya were. Does other nifty stuff
too.
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/
Ronja
> If you are frequently in need of persistent ssh terminals and don't
> want to have to rely on not only the stability of a given ssh client
> program but also your network connectivity, you may wonder how you
> ever lived without
> Gnu Screen
Thanks for reminding me of another old friend! I used to screen all
the time as freshman and sophomore, but that was some time ago (when
Jarkko Oikarinen first wrote IRC, approximately).
Cheers, Ronja
www.iki.fi/~ronja/
Mark
> If you are frequently in need of persistent ssh terminals and don't
> want to have to rely on not only the stability of a given ssh client
> program but also your network connectivity, you may wonder how you
Just reiterating what Todd has said here but if you are a frequent/power
ssh user then you really should adopt gnu screen in your kit bag. These
2 great tools complement each other and kind of go together.
Gnu screen is nice in that it is very easy to get of the ground with and
quickly learn enough to become productive with it. You really only need
to know a small handful of commands. But there are also plenty of
helpful advanced features (e.g. the copy/paste history buffer etc).
Nico Kadel-Garcia
screen is sweet, and invaluable for Putty and SSH when the connection
is vulnerable to short interruptions and you really, really, really
want to maintain a session. It unfortunately interferes with certain
Emacs-style editing commands, because screen interprets those as
control functions for screen. The other sweet tool for preserving
remote sessions is VNC, for graphical sessions. This allows your
keyboard interactions to proceed unharassed, and can evern run over an
HTTPS and Java enabled browser. (Not SSH based but also a cool tool.)
It's also at the core of many if not most network based remote KVM's,
and certainly at the core of most blade computer and virtualized OS
systems. So it's heavily used and tested.
Do be cautious with screen and VNC: any sessions you've started as a
normal user, in which you become root, and leave the session active,
effectively provides root access to attackers who can simply get past
*your* personal password protections, or especially those of the VNC
server.
Chris Ahlstrom
this bit o' wisdom:
> Do be cautious with screen and VNC: any sessions you've started as a
> normal user, in which you become root, and leave the session active,
> effectively provides root access to attackers who can simply get past
> *your* personal password protections, or especially those of the VNC
> server.
And you can tunnel VNC through ssh.
--
It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits:
freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.
-- Mark Twain