PuTTY is a free terminal emulator which supports various network protocols such as SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and SCP. It was originally available only for Windows, but is now also available on various UNIX platforms, with work-in-progress ports to Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. At DreamHost, you are able to use PuTTY to log into your web server through your SHELL username.

Use the following steps to download and set up PuTTY onto your Windows computer.

1. On your Windows computer:
   • navigate to C:\
   • In that directory, create a folder named \bin
   This is the location into which you’ll download your PuTTY files. It doesn’t necessarily matter where you download them, but adding this directory makes it easier to keep track of the files.
2. Open the download page in your browser:
   • chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
3. Download the following files from that site into your C:\bin folder:
   • putty.exe
   • puttygen.exe
   • pagent.exe
   • pscp.exe
   • psftp.exe
4. Navigate to the C:\Users\bin\ directory and double click the putty.exe file to open. Or, you could create a shortcut on your Desktop for easy access:
   • Right click on your Desktop and choose ‘New > Shortcut’
   • Browse to the location of your putty.exe file (it should be C:\Users\bin\putty.exe)
   • Save the shortcut
   The following configuration box appears when you open PuTTY:
5. Enter your DreamHost credentials in the PuTTY Configuration box (see details below).
6. Click the Save button to save this session.

When you open a session in PuTTY, you are prompted for your SHELL username/password.

Host Name (or IP address) In this field enter your DreamHost servername. For example, if your server is named flower, this hostname is flower.dreamhost.com Port

Connection Type

Saved Sessions Enter a name for this connection. For example “DreamHost Server”

Now that you've configured PuTTY, you are ready to log into your server. You can do this manually, or by setting up passwordless login. View the following articles for instructions:

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