\cfg{man-identity}{plink}{1}{2004-03-24}{PuTTY tool suite}{PuTTY tool suite}

\H{plink-manpage} Man page for Plink

\S{plink-manpage-name} NAME

\cw{plink} \- PuTTY link, command line network connection tool

\S{plink-manpage-synopsis} SYNOPSIS

\c plink [options] [user@]host [command]
\e bbbbb  iiiiiii   iiiib iiii  iiiiiii

\S{plink-manpage-description} DESCRIPTION

\cw{plink} is a network connection tool supporting several protocols.

\S{plink-manpage-options} OPTIONS

The command-line options supported by \cw{plink} are:

\dt \cw{-V}

\dd Show version information and exit.

\dt \cw{-pgpfp}

\dd Display the fingerprints of the PuTTY PGP Master Keys and exit,
to aid in verifying new files released by the PuTTY team.

\dt \cw{-v}

\dd Show verbose messages.

\dt \cw{-load} \e{session}

\dd Load settings from saved session.

\dt \cw{-ssh}

\dd Force use of SSH protocol (default).

\dt \cw{-telnet}

\dd Force use of Telnet protocol.

\dt \cw{-rlogin}

\dd Force use of rlogin protocol.

\dt \cw{-raw}

\dd Force raw mode.

\dt \cw{-serial}

\dd Force serial mode.

\dt \cw{-ssh-connection}

\dd Force use of the \q{bare \cw{ssh-connection}} protocol. This is
only likely to be useful when connecting to a \cw{psusan}(\e{1})
server, most likely with an absolute path to a Unix-domain socket in
place of \e{host}.

\dt \cw{\-proxycmd} \e{command}

\dd Instead of making a TCP connection, use \e{command} as a proxy;
network traffic will be redirected to the standard input and output
of \e{command}. \e{command} must be a single word, so is likely to
need quoting by the shell.

\lcont{
The special strings \cw{%host} and \cw{%port} in \e{command} will be
replaced by the hostname and port number you want to connect to; to get
a literal \c{%} sign, enter \c{%%}.

Backslash escapes are also supported, such as sequences like \c{\\n}
being replaced by a literal newline; to get a literal backslash,
enter \c{\\\\}. (Further escaping may be required by the shell.)

(See the main PuTTY manual for full details of the supported \cw{%}-
and backslash-delimited tokens, although most of them are probably not
very useful in this context.)
}

\dt \cw{\-preconnectcommand} \e{command}

\dd Specify an external command to run just before making the main
network connection. The syntax of \e{command} is similar to that
for \cw{-proxycmd}.

\dt \cw{-P} \e{port}

\dd Connect to port \e{port}.

\dt \cw{-l} \e{user}

\dd Set remote username to \e{user}.

\dt \cw{-m} \e{path}

\dd Read remote command(s) from local file \e{path}.

\dt \cw{-batch}

\dd Disable interactive prompts.

\dt \cw{-sanitise-stderr}

\dt \cw{-sanitise-stdout}

\dt \cw{-no-sanitise-stderr}

\dt \cw{-no-sanitise-stdout}

\dd By default, Plink can choose to filter control characters if that
seems appropriate, to prevent remote processes sending confusing escape
sequences. These options override Plink's default behaviour to enable
or disabling such filtering on the standard error and standard output
channels.

\dt \cw{-pwfile} \e{filename}

\dd Open the specified file, and use the first line of text read from
it as the remote password.

\dt \cw{-pw} \e{password}

\dd Set remote password to \e{password}. \e{CAUTION:} this will likely
make the password visible to other users of the local machine (via
commands such as \q{\c{ps}} or \q{\c{w}}). Use \cw{-pwfile} instead.

\dt \cw{\-L} \cw{[}\e{srcaddr}\cw{:]}\e{srcport}\cw{:}\e{desthost}\cw{:}\e{destport}

\dd Set up a local port forwarding: listen on \e{srcport} (or
\e{srcaddr}:\e{srcport} if specified), and forward any connections
over the SSH connection to the destination address
\e{desthost}:\e{destport}. Only works in SSH.

\dt \cw{\-R} \cw{[}\e{srcaddr}\cw{:]}\e{srcport}\cw{:}\e{desthost}\cw{:}\e{destport}

\dd Set up a remote port forwarding: ask the SSH server to listen on
\e{srcport} (or \e{srcaddr}:\e{srcport} if specified), and to
forward any connections back over the SSH connection where the
client will pass them on to the destination address
\e{desthost}:\e{destport}. Only works in SSH.

\dt \cw{\-D} [\e{srcaddr}:]\e{srcport}

\dd Set up dynamic port forwarding. The client listens on
\e{srcport} (or \e{srcaddr}:\e{srcport} if specified), and
implements a SOCKS server. So you can point SOCKS-aware applications
at this port and they will automatically use the SSH connection to
tunnel all their connections. Only works in SSH.

\dt \cw{-X}

\dd Enable X11 forwarding.

\dt \cw{-x}

\dd Disable X11 forwarding (default).

\dt \cw{-A}

\dd Enable agent forwarding.

\dt \cw{-a}

\dd Disable agent forwarding (default).

\dt \cw{-t}

\dd Enable pty allocation (default if a command is NOT specified).

\dt \cw{-T}

\dd Disable pty allocation (default if a command is specified).

\dt \cw{-1}

\dd Force use of SSH protocol version 1.

\dt \cw{-2}

\dd Force use of SSH protocol version 2.

\dt \cw{-4}, \cw{-6}

\dd Force use of IPv4 or IPv6 for network connections.

\dt \cw{-C}

\dd Enable SSH compression.

\dt \cw{-i} \e{keyfile}

\dd Private key file for user authentication. For SSH-2 keys, this key
file must be in PuTTY's PPK format, not OpenSSH's format or anyone
else's.

\lcont{ If you are using an authentication agent, you can also specify
a \e{public} key here (in RFC 4716 or OpenSSH format), to identify
which of the agent's keys to use. }

\dt \cw{\-noagent}

\dd Don't try to use an authentication agent for local authentication.
(This doesn't affect agent forwarding.)

\dt \cw{\-agent}

\dd Allow use of an authentication agent. (This option is only necessary
to override a setting in a saved session.)

\dt \cw{\-no\-trivial\-auth}

\dd Disconnect from any SSH server which accepts authentication without
ever having asked for any kind of password or signature or token. (You
might want to enable this for a server you always expect to challenge
you, for instance to ensure you don't accidentally type your key file's
passphrase into a compromised server spoofing Plink's passphrase
prompt.)

\dt \cw{\-noshare}

\dd Don't test and try to share an existing connection, always make
a new connection.

\dt \cw{\-share}

\dd Test and try to share an existing connection.

\dt \cw{\-hostkey} \e{key}

\dd Specify an acceptable host public key. This option may be specified
multiple times; each key can be either a fingerprint (\cw{SHA256:AbCdE...},
\cw{99:aa:bb:...}, etc) or a base64-encoded blob in OpenSSH's one-line
format.

\lcont{ Specifying this option overrides automated host key
management; \e{only} the key(s) specified on the command-line will be
accepted (unless a saved session also overrides host keys, in which
case those will be added to), and the host key cache will not be
written. }

\dt \cw{-s}

\dd Remote command is SSH subsystem (SSH-2 only).

\dt \cw{-N}

\dd Don't start a remote command or shell at all (SSH-2 only).

\dt \cw{\-nc} \e{host}:\e{port}

\dd Make a remote network connection from the server instead of
starting a shell or command.

\dt \cw{\-sercfg} \e{configuration-string}

\dd Specify the configuration parameters for the serial port, in
\cw{-serial} mode. \e{configuration-string} should be a
comma-separated list of configuration parameters as follows:

\lcont{

\b Any single digit from 5 to 9 sets the number of data bits.

\b \cq{1}, \cq{1.5} or \cq{2} sets the number of stop bits.

\b Any other numeric string is interpreted as a baud rate.

\b A single lower-case letter specifies the parity: \cq{n} for none,
\cq{o} for odd, \cq{e} for even, \cq{m} for mark and \cq{s} for space.

\b A single upper-case letter specifies the flow control: \cq{N} for
none, \cq{X} for XON/XOFF, \cq{R} for RTS/CTS and \cq{D} for
DSR/DTR.

}

\dt \cw{\-sshlog} \e{logfile}

\dt \cw{\-sshrawlog} \e{logfile}

\dd For SSH connections, these options make \cw{plink} log protocol
details to a file. (Some of these may be sensitive, although by default
an effort is made to suppress obvious passwords.)

\lcont{
\cw{\-sshlog} logs decoded SSH packets and other events (those that
\cw{\-v} would print). \cw{\-sshrawlog} additionally logs the raw
encrypted packet data.
}

\dt \cw{\-logoverwrite}

\dd If Plink is configured to write to a log file that already exists,
discard the existing file.

\dt \cw{\-logappend}

\dd If Plink is configured to write to a log file that already exists,
append new log data to the existing file.

\dt \cw{\-shareexists}

\dd Instead of making a new connection, test for the presence of an
existing connection that can be shared. The desired session can be
specified in any of the usual ways.

\lcont{
Returns immediately with a zero exit status if a suitable \q{upstream}
exists, nonzero otherwise.
}

\S{plink-manpage-more-information} MORE INFORMATION

For more information on plink, it's probably best to go and look at
the manual on the PuTTY web page:

\W{https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/}\cw{https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/}

\S{plink-manpage-bugs} BUGS

This man page isn't terribly complete. See the above web link for
better documentation.
