Project status

[FauxFaux]

Hi everyone,

I don't know what to do about this project.

First, let's look at the problems, then some proposals.

---

PuTTYTray is stuck at its current version of a number of reasons:

1. My use of Windows, and my motivation to maintain it, has dropped way off.

2. A number of PuTTYTray features I've never used have a very high maintenance cost.

adb support, and supporting config in files, are a nightmare. I doubt they even work as they used to.

Both should be dropping out of popularity, but I guess that they are not:

• Config files used to be a workaround for Windows having bad support for the registry as a limited user, and for carrying your config around on usb sticks. Both of these usecases have hopefully basically vanished, but instead we have people using Dropbox. Almost all bug reports are from people using Dropbox.
• adb integration into the IDE has become a lot better since they switched to IntelliJ as a backend, but I get the impression that many people haven't switched.

3. PuTTY upstream have fixed a number of my personal concerns.

I was always annoyed upstream didn't have signed binaries, and built PuTTY with a compiler from the 90s; that they didn't care about hardening or process-level security. All of these things have been fixed in the last year. They even moved to git!

4. I changed the development style to assist contributions, but none ever came, and it has ruined everything.

Back when I was young and naive (around three years ago), I changed PuTTYTray from a continually rebased set of patches into a continually merged branch.

I thought this would encourage others to contribute to the project. It hasn't.

This, in general, just does not work for a project tracking upstream. Especially not where the upstream does not want to be tracked, as is the case with Putty: they make things very difficult.

This is something I have learned recently looking at how Debian works. This deserves a whole blog post.

---

Now, what can we do about this? Here are some options:

1. Repair the history, and continue releasing.

I could revert PuTTYTray back to the original development methodology, by going through and separating out all the changes back into patches. This would make it possible to work out more precisely how much cost there is in maintaining the "files" and "adb" code, and how much other stuff is just broken waste.

I tried to do this, and ran out of motivation. This is what's currently sitting in the master branch.

It's unlikely to get finished, ever.

2. Do a "limited release" with just the features that people in this ticket use, and then try and add others later.

This is less effort than the previous suggestion, as it doesn't involve deriving meaning from every line of code.

Currently, the feature list would be:

• URL clicking
• Embedded agent / keygen / etc.
• Probably: compiler changes

And these would go. Things at the top are easier to keep, I guess:

• Always on top
• Window transparency
• Tray icons and related functionality
• adb support
• files support
• all the other crap that has built up over the years

3. Someone else takes over the project.

If nobody cares about this ticket, or about my proposal above, then the project will remain dormant (unless I suddenly get the motivation to continue with "1", or the tooling / upstream improves to the point where it's easier).

It's happened before. It will happen again.

---

So.

• Who would be happy with the "limited release"?
• What other features would you want?
• Or is it better just to leave it dead?

If you have a particularly compelling use for any of the features not in the "limited release", please let me know. We're definitely not at the point where new features are going to get added at request, so don't mention those.

[xsak]

My 2 cents: I am ok with a limited release, but I would like to see the "Tray icons and related functionality" stuff in it.

[FauxFaux]

I have remembered that I like the "mousewheel to change font size" functionality, so that would make it in.

[T-O-W]

Hi!

First of all, I've been using PuTTYtray (together with VcXsrv) for several years now and I really appreciate your work.

I agree with xsak. A limited release would be fine. I like PuTTYtray because of a few small improvements over PuTTY, not because it has thousands of additional features. My favorite features are minimizing to tray (especially nice when running X11 apps) and the embedded agent/keygen. I've never used transparency and I have not even heard of adb. Storing the configuration in files is nice, but I never use it because I want to stay compatible with PuTTY. If this is really required, maybe one could add a registry im-/export instead of storing directly to files. But in my opinion, this does not have to be maintained. "Always on top" seems to be a nice feature, but I don't know when I used it last time.

[Ashus]

Hi.
I'd also like to see a new version with fixed things from upstream, even if it had limited functionality.
Here is a list of features heavily used by me:

• Tray icons (tunneling ports all day)
• Configuration in files (portability)

Thanks for the hard work.

Edit 2018-04-08: Saving configuration to files instead of registry could be simplified by porting source from http://jakub.kotrla.net/putty/ .

[Ximalas]

I only use PuTTYTray due to its URL handling. It made IRC endurable. Would upstream be interested in adding that feature? Is it impossible due to licensing? Automatic reconnect is also nice, when that worked properly. mosh has largely replaced my need for automatic reconnect as this is intrinsic in its design. Sadly, I'm only a mediocre programmer at best. Others have said it, but it's worth repeating, thank you for the hard work.

[vovcacik]

Hi,
thanks for sharing this with us instead of going abandonware. If the limited release would work for you I think it is the best solution.

Important features

• files support
  • this one is really all about the portability that also enables easy sync (rsync, unison, Dropbox) and backup
• Tray icons and related functionality
  • good for hiding many sessions/tunnels
• Confirm key usage
  • fifty fifty between my OCD and security :)

Nice to have

• URL clicking
• Embedded agent / keygen / etc.
• ~/.ssh/id_rsa support
• "Copy OpenSSH public keys"

Never used it

• Always on top
• Window transparency
• adb support
• cygterm
• Start with Windows

[Jadelor]

Would be ecstatic w/ limited release. My favourite things with PuTTY forks have been (in this order):

URL picker
good text antialiasing
visual bell in the taskbar icon
remembered window size/location

Though most omissions are workable-through for me.

[ghost]

Sad to hear the situation is like it is. I guess the writing has been on the wall for a while now. Thank you for your efforts!

Considering that the choice is really between no release and limited release, I'm all for a limited release. Security should be of utmost importance and that's why it's important to have updates fixing possible security issues. Those who can live with the limited features will update, so it's definitely better than nothing.

List of features important to me:

1. Clickable hyperlinks are by far the most important thing that led me (and many others) to PuTTY Tray in the first place and why I keep using it.
2. Tray icon and minimize to systray,
3. Always on top, sometimes handy.

[julianxhokaxhiu]

I am also fine with a limited release.

What I would like to see:

• tray functionality
• Start with Windows ( i love this very much combined with agent )
• copy openssh public keys
• embedded agent/keygen/etc.
• clickable URLs

Everything else for me is nice to have, but I don't care really much.

Cheers!

[ziesemer]

Agreed with others here. Absolutely, especially for this type of application, security and timely updates (especially anything released upstream) are of utmost importance (reference https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.70/htmldoc/AppendixD.html#udp-security). When PuTTYTray is not based on the current version of PuTTY, I can't use it as such.

Overall, mostly in agreement with @vovcacik and @tnuutine.

The features for why I most used PuTTYTray:

• Ctrl+mousewheel zoom support (https://superuser.com/questions/406839/is-there-way-to-change-font-size-in-putty-using-the-wheel-in-mouse-or-contrl)
• URL Hyperlinks
• Protocol Handlers (Support ssh:// URI #203)

Nice-to-haves:

• The various Pageant additions: Persist keys, Confirm key usage, Start with Windows (otherwise easy enough to manually throw in Startup folder), and additional Add / Copy options on "View Keys" dialog.
• Restart Session. Especially handy after sending an incorrect username at SSH login. Work-around is to duplicate session, then close the old window.

Never used:

• adb support.
• files support.
  • For those using this, what are the disadvantages to using https://portableapps.com/manuals/PortableApps.comLauncher/index.html or a similar alternative instead - removing this from being an application-specific concern?
• cygterm.
  • I use Putty with Cygwin ALL THE TIME. However, I don't see any need for PuTTY or other clones to go out of their way to support this. https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/cygwin-terminal-window.html works perfectly for me. Using the 64-bit builds now available, the 2015-11-26 issue and work-around documented there is no longer even a thing. For anyone wanting more, I think any efforts would be better spent working with Cygwin to have the necessary support included in Cygwin's telnet server (as per the link here).

I wouldn't mind assisting with some actual development efforts here, as long as there is current documentation for creating successful builds. Fearing the abandonment of PuTTYTray, I had briefly started looking at creating my own fork of PuTTY with a few customizations (those I listed here). However, I was unable to get a proper project setup or build using Visual Studio 2017 (given https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30193063/c-error-rc2104-trying-to-compile-putty-pscp-for-windows-on-visual-studio-6-0 with both version.h and license.h, and a few other related errors).

Thank you for posting, and for giving PuTTYTray a new prospect at continued usage!

[czakey]

I'd love:

URL clicking
embedded agent, keygen
window transparency

I never used:

always on top
tray icon (sorry ;))
adb support
cygterm
start with Windows

BTW: many thanks for your work!

[thedewi]

Thanks for opening this conversation to us, FauxFaux. It does sound worth it to minimize the patch size. Here's my feature votes:

Used a lot by me -

• URL clicking
• Custom icon
• Settings in files
• Bell lights taskbar

Nice to have -

• OpenSSH key loading

[JasonUnger]

I also would support limited releases.

Used a lot by me:

• Embedded key gen / pageant
• File based configurations (I never use the registry, as my PuTTyTray lives in Dropbox)
• URL clicking
• Direct connection to the developer ;)

[Pacoup]

You will laugh but I legit only use PuTTYTray because it renders Consolas Bold properly.

[droolio]

A little late to the discussion but I'd just like to add some input regarding the files feature, which I do use quite heavily, and is perhaps my most important desired feature...

Portability for individuals isn't the only use case; it's super handy to distribute session settings, and even host keys if so desired (security implications considered!), directly - using SyncThing in my case - to colleagues without going through the rigmarole of importing/exporting/tidying registry entries.

Furthermore, to me it just never made sense for putty to store such settings in the registry of all places. Most software these days use ~/%userprofile%, %appdata%, and .xml config files. Places that are easy to backup, manage. Increasingly, file portability is an option these days.

So the files feature I'd really miss.

Anyway, thank you FauxFaux and many others for the hard work you've put into this project. Hopefully it'll find a way to continue on! Security should be priority, however.

[Scavy]

I have used PuTTYTray for years, and have daily been enjoyed the improvements that it has over PuTTY.

The features that is important for me is:

• File support - I use it with DropBox to be able to syncronize my working environment between different computers.
• Transparency - I really enjoy having a fine looking setup. And transparency helps with that. Also when working on a laptop with no additional screens, I enjoy being able to overlay the PuTTYTray window ontop of what stuff that I'm working with.
• Tray - This is one of the main features of PuTTYTray, and I use it now and then.

In generally PuTTYTray feels like a lot more polished program then the original PuTTY.

I really do hope that a solution will be found which enables PuTTYTray to be continued.

[Jimmy-Z]

Personally I've been using OpenSSH in MSYS2 since mintty became the default terminal in MSYS2, FYI mintty is based on putty so it looks and feels just like putty, and OpenSSH's config file is much more comfortable to manage and maintain than putty tray's registry dump, you guys should probably check that out.

Also MSYS2 has mosh, which is neat.

I still keep putty tray though, solely for the popup confirmation about key usage in pageant, which is still absent in upstream: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/pageant-key-confirm.html

[jimporter]

You will laugh but I legit only use PuTTYTray because it renders Consolas Bold properly.

This is a big one for me too. The other things I use:

• URL clicking
• "Recent sessions" from the Windows "jumplist" on the taskbar (is this in the base PuTTY?)

I don't think I'd be sad if every other feature went away. I wasn't even aware half of the ones listed in the original comment existed.

[mbunkus]

I'm very sorry to hear this, but on the other hand I'm also extremely grateful for the work you've done so far on PuTTYtray. I vastly prefer it over the original and all other forks for two reasons:

• URL recognition/clicking
• File storage for sessions

The latter is, without doubt, the killer feature for me as I'm syncing my configuration across four personal computers as well as using this feature to provide pre-made configuration files for colleagues.

[Spork-Schivago]

We've used PUTTYtray for years. The only reason we use it instead of putty is because we can store our private key on a thumb drive to login.

Now that we're starting a business, this is extremely important. Without the thumb drive, no one can gain access to our system through SSH, provided we have it setup properly. Since our new business involves sensitive data, I had to update my OpenSSH config files to support a much stronger encryption type, along various other things. To my disappointment, PUTTYtray does not understand the new puttygen file format, and doesn't support the newer ciphers. So I came looking for a more updated copy, and found this.

We could setup a gofund me page and I'm certain people would donate money. I know once we finish purchasing all the software and the remaining hardware and get these pesky Microsoft licensing issues taken care of, when we start generating revenue, albeit a few years down the road, I'd be willing to donate 500$ or more, depending on how the new business goes, if it meant keeping PUTTYtray alive.

Currently, we're in a bad spot. We need the higher encryption and we need to keep the keys on personal thumb drives that get locked up securely. One on-site, one off-site.

I can try looking for an alternative but I doubt I'll find anything as nice as PUTTYtray has been. Being able to store those keys on the thumb drive was the absolute best. In Linux, we used the same thumb drive and configured ssh to look in the auto-mounted directory. We'd have the thumb drive mount read-only (which was hard for me to figure out how to do, but I finally got it). And if I just had to pull the thumb drive out, for whatever reason, a script would execute that would kill ssh.

In Windows, we have it always mount to the Z drive and have PUTTYtray look on the Z drive for the keys. Not really sure what to do now though :(

If I wasn't so busy, I'd honestly help with the code. But with setting up this new business, it's literally taking all the free time we have, plus we have a daughter that we need to make sure we don't forget about. I am so sorry no one joined. I should have. I worked on a PS3 toolchain, hoping people would jump aboard. That took a lot of work. It was based off the old outdated one that wouldn't compile anymore. I did it all myself, updating it, etc. Got it where it'd compile programs that you could run on the PS3. I see now the official PS3 toolchain is back, and a lot of the scripts look like mine. So maybe they built them based off of mine, or copied them? That's the whole point of open source code, so people can get use out of it. I really do not want to see this project die. We only use SSH, keys on the thumb drive, and sessions on the thumb drive. That's it. We use sftp as well to transfer files using something on the thumb drive, but it was so long ago when I set that up, I cannot remember if that came from Putty or PUTTYtray.

Regardless, thank you for all of the hard work you have put into this program over the years. No matter which way you decide to go, we are forever grateful for all the years we were able to use this program.

[ggets]

Firstly, I would like to thank you for a wonderful project I use extensively for the past few years for cygwin, adb, serial and ssh and even raw connections every now and then. It's a bummer I can't help with the development. Especially since if this project goes into a ditch, there's no better or comparable alternative to switch to. Without having read all the following comments, and, if this can be considered a vote for limited-version features, I would vote on adb and cygwin support. Maybe one day (why not) native WSL support (this is not by any means a feature request). That would make this a swiss army knife tool, that has no equivalent as it is even today (though a bit outdated).
The other thing that really makes it stand out are the clickable urls. Keygen is not something you use everyday, so I guess that can be done with another tool as well.

[sckramer]

We use this in an enterprise env (embedded in a c# client app)... nicest consoleas font handling, resize font on window resize, etc-- stock putty is very ugly. Getting really worried there's no new build based on 0.70 (current puttytray does not have elliptic curve)

We use the settings file... but really only because you can't pass all settings on the command line that we need. Registry is not an option at all.

[FireEgl]

I love PuTTYTray and want to thank FauxFaux/Chris for all the work he's put into it. I wish I could help with the development/move to new codebase, but I never really learned C..
Anyway, my favorite PuTTYTray features is the window/session icons, and the systray support. You can't even call it PuTTYTray without systray support right? =P File based sessions are really nice, but I can work around that.
Features I'd like to see dropped are ADB and Cygterm support.. People can just use older builds of PuTTYTray if they need ADB..or switch to another PuTTY based project that has ADB support..
And Cygterm, like somebody else said, can be done using telnet and a local proxy command to cygtermd. (This also works for MSYS2, if you compile cygtermd under MSYS2)

[letsjustfixit]

@FauxFaux Any updates / status on this? Would love to see some kind of reaction..

[ggets]

@FireEgl, Well I never use the tray feature, so I would like to see that dropped. And I surely don't care if the name changes, because the name is not what makes a piece of software great, but its features. I promise you there are plenty of programs you can use to send any window to tray or change the icon in the titlebar. That's, of course, following your logic. What's it to you if it is removed? After all, when you're starting such a program you don't do it to look at the beatuiful UI, but to get the job done.

[letsjustfixit]

@hkrware this is a totally subjective matter: for one im also lovin the tray support as i mostly have space on the statusbar however got a whole bunch of apps running simultaneously :).. Also lovin the file-based connection data as this way i can easily port & backup my connections :)

[ggets]

@letsjustfixit I agree, this is totally subjective. and a vote should totally be positive-only, too. When you vote for president, you don't mark who you don't want to become one.
All on all if we're to apply the same logic @FireEgl implied, he could use the old version of PuttyTray as well. I bet the most widely NEEDED feature is not hiding a window.

[mamuf]

Hi, the limited release would be great! Actually the only feature I miss in upstream putty is the clickable links. I think I don't really use anything else puttytray offers.

[PepeLopez]

Most used features for me:

• Restart session
• Minimize to tray - important when tunneling a lot
• Transparency - YES, I use it, to see on busy screens e.g. mails which are under putty...
• Portability

Please don't let it die!

[FauxFaux]

@PepeLopez: Restart has never worked, does not work, is gone from new versions already, and is not coming back. Please at least run the newest old version!

[JasonUnger]

Restart seems to work for my use case.

…

On Fri, Jun 1, 2018, 08:07 Chris West ***@***.***> wrote: @PepeLopez <https://github.com/PepeLopez>: Restart has never worked, does not work, is gone from new versions already, and is not coming back. Please at least run the newest old version! — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#278 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ALevq2ye9FdmVJAxWS9vuqB_SkDr44x5ks5t4ViLgaJpZM4P-6md> .

[droolio]

Huh, Restart Session has always worked for me, and currently does so in p0.67-t029 (newest old version?)

[FauxFaux]

Pepe has confused us, the scoundrel!

"Restart Session" is a feature of upstream PuTTY that has been there since about 2004, and does indeed work.

I was referring to the "automatic re-connection" feature of PuTTYTray, which is the one that is scarily broken.

[JasonUnger]

Darn Pepe!

I have no use for an automatic restart. Rightclick-Restart works just fine.

[JasonUnger]

@FauxFaux As for the files function, my use case here is USB/Zip sharing. It is extremely useful in this regard, with one exception that when I launch a saved profile in files mode on a machine that has registry profiles, PuTTyTray complains that the registry profiles don't exist (and then proceeds to launch the selected profile successfully). Would this possibly be something that could get a quick patch?

[PepeLopez]

I'm sorry for the confusion!
My list was just about the features in PuttyTray I love and don't wanna miss!
That's why I listed "Restart Session", which is just that one entry in the top left window corner menu - it's missing in original putty and that's quite bad at all!

[mailinglists35]

meanwhile I'm using mobaxterm which has about anything i need.
sorry if it sounds unconstructive but that's a decent working solution right now for me.

[Nama]

I liked to use puttytray for several years. First, I needed the tray-feature and also wanted to save the config in files. I changed yesterday to OpenSSH since I'm known with it from my Linux clients. Putty has benefits, like adding tunnels while you are connected and just clicking on the GUI instead of looking for the config you used several times but always forgot how to. On putty it always annoyed me, that ctrl + left/right didn't work and also scp was not possible. Both work on OpenSSH. With some tweaks to Powershell, you can enable Linux-like TAB-Completion and even run vim/vi/nano directly (if you have Ubuntu installed from the store).
If you want to work on this project, maybe borrow code from Kitty?
Or the users could change to Kitty, since it has most of the features puttytray has (and can't keep?).

I like puttytray, I used it for years. But the original putty has some flaws. OpenSSH is just more convenient.

[ganego]

Tray icons and related functionality

The only reason I found PuttyTRAY in the first place, and the reason I still use it. Minimize to tray that is.

[sckramer]

Hello, new puttytray based on 0.70 in this lifetime? ;D

[xBytez]

To this day, I still use PuTTYTray! (Couldn't let that rhyme slide).

Is there any reason I should stop using PuTTYTray until the 0.70 version is released? Or is the only reason that it's a bit behind upstream?

[Nama]

Is there any reason I should stop using PuTTYTray until the 0.70 version is released? Or is the only reason that it's a bit behind upstream?

Outdated software are security risks!
I see that there are still commits, but the compiled download wasn't updated for over 2 years. I don't know if security patches are applied on the commits, but if you don't compile PuttyTray on your own.
Don't use PuttyTray!
Even the readme suggests to use Putty instead.

[thedewi]

I have also switched to openssh, the copy included with git for windows, which works fairly well and is kept more up-to-date than most unix toolsets for Windows. The key agent is a bit unfriendly but GitHub has a useful guide here: https://help.github.com/articles/working-with-ssh-key-passphrases/#auto-launching-ssh-agent-on-git-for-windows

The biggest security advantage compared to PuTTYTray is being able to use key-stretched encryption on your private key, and newer signature algorithms like ed25519. Key formats of PuTTYTray's era (although I don't know .ppk's approach specifically) were too easy to bruteforce.

[thedewi]

The above uses the same terminal emulation code taken from PuTTY, and stores its settings in files. Customizing and pinning taskbar icons is complicated but I managed to get a pinnable icon this way - https://gist.github.com/thedewi/7852e86fdc29a057da3d6a51cc72e414

I don't think it can minimize to tray itself, but there are free tools around that can tray-minimize most things, so they'd be worth a try.

[kohrar]

I switched back to upstream PuTTY for security reasons but felt that I simply couldn't live without a few key features from PuTTYTray. Loading sessions from files and mouse wheel zoom / font resizing was something I used quite frequently.

If anyone is interested, I have these features (and a few more more) working with the latest 0.72 release with the code available at: https://github.com/kohrar/putty-features/compare/master...features?expand=1. Compiled binaries are also available, but are self signed and hosted on my private git repository linked in the project description.

I'd like to see PuTTYTray be updated, and I would make a pull request with what I got working. However, things in PuTTYTray are far too out dated and there really are a lot of features that are implemented which I don't use (like minimize to tray, ironically enough).

[ttencate]

Thanks to @FauxFaux for the work on PuTTYTray so far, and the transparency about its future. Much appreciated.

For those who use PuTTYTray just for clickable URL links: take a look at https://ryara.net/putty-url/ which seems to be tracking upstream more closely, and worked just fine in my thus-far limited test.

[shelterx]

Compiled binaries are also available, but are self signed and hosted on my private git repository linked in the project description.

Perhaps I'm blind but I couldn't find any binaries.
Anyway, if someone is interested, here are x32 and x64 binaries I compiled with Visual Studio 2019 Community.
I noticecd the x64 version gave a lot of warnings... but it seems to work.

I only changed the default putty icon as i don't like it... it looks "ok" however some clipping seems to occur.

[Meoji]

There seems to be an issue with the colours in PuTTYTray compared to PuTTY. If you run a python script and define a colour for example: red = \033[38;2;255;0;0m\033m and try printing that, it will not print it in that colour. This works fine in the regular putty, And i'd love to see this implemented :)

[grzegorz-janoszka]

Shelterx - your files cannot read the config at all - I get error 2. Anyway - I was extremely happy with this putty with minimize to tray. I use it often as a socks/ssh proxy and with many connection coming at once it often crashes. Newer putty doesn't have such bug, but cannot minimize to tray.
Any future for this project?

[shelterx]

Shelterx - your files cannot read the config at all - I get error 2. Anyway - I was extremely happy with this putty with minimize to tray.

Strange, I went straight from PuttyTray to Putty Features using the same file based configs, they load fine here. There are official binary versions available somewhere I think but I can't find the links right now.

[Ashus]

I switched to this PuTTY fork 2 years ago:
https://jakub.kotrla.net/putty/
It is up to date security-wise with upstream and stores configs in files.
On top of that, I use RBTray to right click the window handle to minimize anything to tray.
http://rbtray.sourceforge.net/

[stoag]

Where's the Debian post you speak of? Regarding what was learned about it... having said that deserved it's own post was intriguing.

[lalbornoz]

To whom it may concern: https://github.com/lalbornoz/FySTY

[sckramer]

I switched to this PuTTY fork 2 years ago: https://jakub.kotrla.net/putty/ It is up to date security-wise with upstream and stores configs in files. On top of that, I use RBTray to right click the window handle to minimize anything to tray. http://rbtray.sourceforge.net/

Does anyone know the trick to setting the hostname from the cmd line AND load the settings file? It always uses the hostname in the file, even if blank. Tried the normal putty "hostname", -host, -hostname, -l user@hostname, etc... Thanks!