Every once in a while, I have to work my way down to my Windows machine for various reasons. The reasons have to be very specific, because I’m going to use my Linux box if at all possible. Nonetheless, sometimes I just can’t avoid it. When these times happen, I find myself in need of SSH, but, alas, Windows has decided that us “dumb users” don’t need such a feature. Read on for a quickie review of a nice program I found to fill the gap.

SSH is a secure way for having remote access into a machine. I try to use some form of secure transmission no matter what I do. Be it ordering something online, or uploading a picture to post on my blog, I want to be sure that my password (or any other sensitive material) isn’t intercepted in transit. Seeing that most secure transmissions operate at a minimum of 128-bit, I feel confident that when I connect via SSH, I’m safe (2^128 = I need to get my TI out to know the answer).

A nice program to give me SSH access is called Putty. It’s not flashy, but it is functional. Basically on startup, Putty gives a simple screen to add servers to connect to in future sessions, or you can just enter the IP or domain name of the server to which you want to connect. Upon connection, you are given shell access via SSH to the remote machine.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to remain as secure as possible. Coming with Putty is an SFTP capability. This stands for Secure FTP, meaning that your FTP connections are secured as well. On Linux, I’ll use SCP, but we’ll save that for another day. On Windows, I break out SFTP to transfer files between my Windows machine and my web server, for example. This was a nice addition to a program that I wasn’t expecting. I was just trying to find a nice front-end to SSH, and Putty provided SFTP as well.

All in all, you can’t expect (or for that matter, want) a program to do more than it’s supposed to do. For SSH, I just want a secure connection, and Putty does the trick. I recommend it for all Windows users who want secure transmissions to remote machines (by the way, most Linux flavors come with the ssh client). This, as a matter of fact, should be every one of you (if you even need to connect to remote machines). Remember that telnet is “clear text,” which means I can snoop your password, wreak havoc on your system, and make you wish you heeded this quickie-review.

I found Putty at www.download.com. You’ll find it there, too.