PuTTY source code README

This is the README for the source code of PuTTY, a free Windows and Unix Telnet and SSH client.

PuTTY is built using CMake https://cmake.org/. To compile in the simplest way (on any of Linux, Windows or Mac), the general method is to run these commands in the source directory:

cmake . cmake --build .

These commands will expect to find a usable compile toolchain on your path. So if you're building on Windows with MSVC, you'll need to make sure that the MSVC compiler (cl.exe) is on your path, by running one of the 'vcvars32.bat' setup scripts provided with the tools. Then the cmake commands above should work.

To install in the simplest way on Linux or Mac:

cmake --build . --target install

On Unix, pterm would like to be setuid or setgid, as appropriate, to permit it to write records of user logins to /var/run/utmp and /var/log/wtmp. (Of course it will not use this privilege for anything else, and in particular it will drop all privileges before starting up complex subsystems like GTK.) The cmake install step doesn't attempt to add these privileges, so if you want user login recording to work, you should manually ch{own,grp} and chmod the pterm binary yourself after installation. If you don't do this, pterm will still work, but not update the user login databases.

Documentation (in various formats including Windows Help and Unix man' pages) is built from the Halibut (.but') files in the `doc' subdirectory. If you aren't using one of our source snapshots, you'll need to do this yourself. Halibut can be found at https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/.

The PuTTY home web site is

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

If you want to send bug reports or feature requests, please read the Feedback section of the web site before doing so. Sending one-line reports saying `it doesn't work' will waste your time as much as ours.

See the file LICENCE for the licence conditions.