Downloading and Running PuTTY for Windows

Downloading

Visit the PuTTY homepagee. Click "Download" near the top of the screen.

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Scroll down to where it says "For Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP on Intel x86."

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Right-click on the "putty.exe" link for SecureCRT. Choose "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" or whatever sounds the most similar.

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Save the file to the Desktop. Click "Save."

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Running

Look on the Desktop (or wherever you saved the file) for an icon that looks like the one below, called "putty" or "putty.exe." Double-click it to run the program.

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When you see the "PuTTY Configuration" screen, look for the "Host Name (or IP Address)" box. Type oitunix.oit.umass.edu in the box (as seen in the screenshot below). Make sure "SSH" is selected under "Protocol" -- it should be selected by default. If you want to be able to skip this step (typing in the host name) in the future, follow the next paragraph below. If not, just click "Open" near the bottom of the window and skip the rest of this step.

To save the oitunix.oit.umass.edu host name so you won't have to enter it every time, before you press "Open," fill in a name for this session in the long skinny box under "Saved Sessions;" can use any name you want, for example, oitunix works well. Then press "Save;" the name will appear in the list of sessions to the left (as the screenshot depicts). To get to OITUNIX in the future, just double click on oitunix (or whatever you named the session) in the big sessions box.

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If you see a "PuTTY Security Alert" screen, just click "Yes." (You shouldn't see it again.)

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A window will appear which says "login as:". This is where you type your username. This is the same username you use to access your student.umass.edu email. So if your email address is jschmoe@student.umass.edu, then your username is jschmoe, and you would type jschmoe at this step. Press ENTER when you're done.

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Next, you will be prompted for your password. Type your password in the screen---the cursor will not move and no characters will be displayed. This is normal. Press ENTER when you're done typing your password.

Recall that your password will either be your student.umass.edu email password, or your SPIRE ID (Student ID).

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If you see a greeting similar to the one below, then you're connected! Whenever you see the prompt (looks like username@shell1:~$), UNIX is waiting for a command.

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To logout from OITUNIX, type logout at the prompt. If you are in pine or pico, you must exit those programs first to get back to the prompt.

If your prompt ends with a percent sign (%) (for instance, if it says shell1%) instead of a dollar sign ($), then you need to run the first-time setup command.