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Best Free Telnet-SSH Terminal Emulator
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Introduction
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Terminal emulators provide a telnet or SSH connection to UNIX like servers. Commercial products can emulate a wealth of terminal types, provide GUI face-lifting etc. All very nice, but this can leave the emulator feeling sluggish. Free implementations are more focused on the job at hand — providing a fast no-frills connection. There is no shortage of candidates so I am presenting a couple of mature offerings followed by some modern projects. Most free products only offer a narrow range of screen emulations, typically vt100, linux or xterm. As a full time support analyst, I considered support for the following features as my essential criteria.
Without the abovementioned accessing or supporting legacy-green-screen-systems is likely to be problematic. |
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Discussion
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Dave’s Telnet replaced my commercial product for a week with only a couple of minor points. Copy and paste functions seemed clunky and it failed to connect to one hostname, I had to specify the IP address.
It does not appear to support an answerback message or configurable function keys. However, in the case of function keys this may not be applicable to xterm emulation. PuTTY has been incorporated into many related projects. Both choices are maintained, but new releases are infrequent. The following two packages I reviewed just missed a recommendation, but remain on my watch list. Poderosa provides a modern tabbed environment offering vt100/xterm/kterm emulations and the ability to extend with plugins. It offers no obvious support for my criteria, but proved robust as a basic terminal emulator with a useful context menu available from right click. Another interesting feature is auto complete based on previously typed commands. This may be of interest to system administrators or those requiring basic remote access. Requires .NET v2 to be installed. Unfortunately this project seems to have gone the way of the Dodo with no updates since 2006. This is a great shame for a project that could easily have become my hands down winner over time. Terminals is a more general remote access package including a vt220 terminal emulator. It provides a tabbed environment offering the ability to connect using telnet/Remote Desktop/VNC and others. It also provides over a dozen network analysis options, including ping, traceroute and whois. Again no obvious support for my criteria. I encountered stability issues using Windows 2000, although no definitive list of supported versions is given. This may be of interest to system administrators looking after a wide range of machine types. Currently being actively developed. |
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free terminal emulator |
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Comments
If you are running Windows and you want to log on to a Linux box with SSH in console mode, try Kitty, an improved version of Putty. It adds features such as an optional automatic login so you don't have to type in your password every time.
If you want to run graphical programs on the Linux, you will need a terminal program with an X server. I don't think you can find a better one than freeware Mobaxterm.
Does Dave's Telnet have any form of security or encryption?
Definitely Tera Term.
http://logmett.com/index.php?/products/teraterm.html
Going to look at some of these other telnet clients, as puTTY is lacking in the macro area. However, it does support answerbacks. Under the "Terminal" setting, there is a line that says "Answerback to ^E". On the textbox below, you can put what the answerback should be. For example:
MyAnswerBack^M
sends the text "MyAnswerback" followed by a carriage return
I like MobaXterm. It has much more than just a terminal emulator though. Check it out here http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/en/
Does anyone know where I can find the Windows telnet client for XP?
FoxTerm is a free emulator that provides access to Telnet and COM port connections. The pro's are that it is really easy to use for many connections (tile windows for each connection within the same instance of FoxTerm) and provides a session capability. It's like Poderosa but I find it more useful because you can manually edit the session XML file to do all sorts of things. It also has really great time stamp functionality and flexibility - you can specify whatever time stamp format you want. The cons are that the emulation support isn't all there and it doesn't support SSH. It really only supports plain text. You can download it from www.foxterm.net
A **BIG** thank-you to the person who pointed me to Cryptoterm!!!
Boys, that is a real killer app. I'd only appreciate an easier way to profile/model/choose connections' profiles but, besides this, it's the king of terminal emulators and it's flexible and customizable in almost every way.
Finally I can enjoy midnight commander and yast the way the should, also on a remote plain text terminal! :-D
Try CryptoTerm at http://www.cryptoterm.com/ it meets all 3 criteria and is freeware too. Version 1.2 was released 1/5/2010 with Win 7 compatibilty and FTP client and it does SSH, SSL and TLS. The only thing strange is that the "about" screen has "This program will work to: 2010.12.31"
Larry B
Larry -
I just got employment with a company that uses handheld computers and I want to learn all there is to know about Terminal Emulation. Do you have any recommencations as to how to go about learning TE?
Thanks for your time.
-Mike
There is new version of CryptoTerm: 1.3.
It will work to: 12/21/2012.
Till the end of the world?
Terra Term doent support SSH version 2 so putty ftw
Another version of Tera Term that also supports SSH.
http://www.ayera.com/teraterm/
This version of Tera Term supports SSH.
http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp
I would just like to have some Remote software thats easy for ANYONE to use
check out the xshell 3, which is free for home/school use. very powerful client for telnet/ssh
I second xshell - awesome. leaves securecrt for dead
Take a look at UniTTY and Remote Desktop Manager they are both very nice.
UniTTY - http://www.sshtools.com/en/unitty/
RDM - http://remotedesktopmanager.com/
Terminals doesnt release a specific version for x64, but is fully compatible.
Thanks for the reference!
-Rob Chartier
I like SSH 3.2.9 from http://www.ssh.com, but that is an older version that they have released free with restricted license use (personal use) and is not on their website for download.
The online user manual is here:
http://www.ssh.com/support/documentation/online/ssh/winhelp/32/
and you can download it with a google search:
http://www.ssh.com/support/documentation/online/ssh/winhelp/32/
and find it here:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~doit/helpdesk/wdevapp.htm
direct link here:
http://www[dot]sfsu.edu/ftp/win/ssh/SSHSecureShellClient-3.2.9.exe
and some install info here:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~helpdesk/ssh/ssh329/
An interesting twist on putty is a code fork named Kitty - it adds some new features, mostly aesthetic, some kind of nice.
http://www.9bis.net/kitty/
I use only putty exclusively for serious Unix/Linux administration, all day every day and have no reason to use anything else, along with X-ming for those occasional times when I need an X display. putty does all I need, and does it well, but we're all different. One of the real key features for me with putty is pageant key based authentication, which works hand-in-hand with WinSCP for authentication. With just one key and proper configurations, I never have to put my name and password into a server anymore wen I log in. Yes, I have the right security configs, and it is safe and is no problem with audits! :-)
I have been using TeraTerm (http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp/) for a few years now. Not sure that it meets your essential criteria, which I haven't had a need for. It has lots of features, and is currently being maintained.
Hi Guys,
I too have been using TeraTerm for a few years now and for simple telnet connections I think it's better then putty.
It also has a macro programming language, which is very useful.
It can also be made portable, by installing it, then copying the installed files to a memory stick.
I will give it another try in the next batch of reviews. The dialog boxes desperately need updating, I thought I had been tranported back 15 years to Windows 3.11
Adrian
Has anyone tried CLI*Manager released by Nortel? I think it is the best of the telnet/ssh programs.
Nortel CLI*Manager does not appear to be freeware. If you can provide a link to a free version I will add it to the reveiw queue
Thanks
Adrian
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