· df · 2 min read
Putty Session automation and portability
Hope you all have "Putty" as your favourite ssh client? For me too.. But sometimes, I felt there are some issues when you are working with 100's of servers and multiple locations. This article will guide you to achieve
This article is also listed under:
- Putty portability: by storing sessions in files rather than in windows Registry
- Automate creation of Putty sessions: No more manual entries one by one
- Consistent coloring of Putty sessions for team
- Consistent naming conventions for Putty sessions
- "Keepass" to putty integration: Password management and automated login
- Use "SuperPutty" to allow multiple putty sessions in a single Tab
Pre-requisite
Full package available to download at end of this document
- Basic knowledge of coding. Overall understanding of tools
- Portable Putty: Ability to store sessions to file (http://jakub.kotrla.net/putty/)
- Optional: AutoIT (http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/) : For automation purpose in Windows PC's. (Alternatively *NIX env by writing a simple find-replace awk script)
- Optional: SuperPutty (http://code.google.com/p/superputty/) to allow tab access
- Optional: Keepass (http://keepass.info/) Password Management
What we are going to do (in a nutshell)
- Create putty sessions in batch from a configuration file
- Configuration file format to contain IP address, hostname, Grouping etc..
- Store sessions and Portable putty in consistent directory path. Share it to entire team if required to bring consistency across your team.
- Link Keepass to use these saved sessions to allow manage password and login
Step by Step guide
- Download the package as given below of this document.
- Unzip all the conents your local drive. (eg C:\PuttyPortable\ )
- Configure "putty.conf" as per your needs
- Ensure you create "ses" and "hostkeys" directory as per "putty.conf"
- Create color for sessions. This can be created based on the "Environment". Like Red color for "PROD" environment. Put then into a directory (eg. C:\PuttyPortable\SessionConfig )
- Create Configuration file format to contain IP address, hostname, Grouping etc.. (eg C:\PuttyPortable\SessionConfig\ServerList.csv )
- Provide the Putty Session Template file. Provide correct port number if required (eg: C:\PuttyPortable\SessionConfig\Template.Txt)
- I have created "PuttySessionGenerator.au3" automation script. Run it using "AutoIt3.exe"
- Running This would create sessions in "ses" directory (eg: C:\PuttyPortable\ses )
- Double click on your Putty (eg: C:\PuttyPortable\putty.exe ).
- This will load all the new sessions automatically.
- Link Keepass to use these saved sessions to allow manage password and lo-gins. Please use this guide
Download Package
Download Code from GITHUB (download by zip)This article is also listed under:
- Create Multiple Putty Sessions in one go
- Putty Sessions as files rather than in registry
- Bulk Create putty session connections