All of the Windows machines in the WCTS computer labs have a program known as PuTTY installed and preconfigured to access Students and Marcus. This program can also be downloaded for free for use on your personal machine.

In the Labs

If you are using a computer on which we have already installed and preconfigured PuTTY, you can quickly access the Marcus or Students servers quickly and easily. There should be two blue and yellow shorcuts on the desktop, "Connect to Marcus" and "Connect to Students" respectively. Double-click the shortcut associated with your designated server to open a connection.

On Your Own Computer

Download and Installation

Open a web browser and go to http://www.putty.nl/download.html. In the "Binarys" section, go to the "For Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP" subsection, and download putty.exe to a safe location on your computer. A good location for example would be your Desktop (for easy access) or "C:\Program Files" (safer, central location to make shortcuts to).

No "installation" is necessary. The entire program consists of nothing more than that one .exe file. Double-click it (or any shortcut you might point to it) to launch PuTTY.

Configuring PuTTY

Every time PuTTY is launched, it will display it's main configuration window. This windows will allow you to set up and save a number of connection profiles for easy access later. For our purposes here, you won't need to worry about anything other than what's in the "Session" options set.

• To open a new connection: type the name of your designated server in the "Host Name (or IP Address)" field, make sure the "SSH" option is set under "Protocal" and click [Open].
  
• To save a connection: complete the above steps except for clicking [Open]. Type a name for your this session (such as "SSH to Students") in the text field under "Saved Sessions", then click [Save].
• To open a saved connection: double-click the session name from the "Saved Sessions" list.
• To edit a saved connection: single-click the session name and click [Load]. Change your settings as needed, then click [Save]

When a session is launched, the configuration window will close and a black "shell" window will open. Once the PuTTY is able to contact the intended server, you will be prompted for your username and password. If you entered correct credentials, you will be given a command prompt (such as "marcus%"), and will have successfully connected.