1pterm(1) PuTTY tool suite pterm(1)
2
6 pterm ‐ yet another X terminal emulator
7
9 pterm [ options ]
10
12 pterm is a terminal emulator for X. It is based on a port of the termi‐
13 nal emulation engine in the Windows SSH client PuTTY.
14
16 The command-line options supported by pterm are:
17 -e command [ arguments ]
19 Specify a command to be executed in the new terminal. Everything
20 on the command line after this option will be passed straight to
21 the execvp system call; so if you need the command to redirect
22 its input or output, you will have to use sh:
23 pterm -e sh -c 'mycommand < inputfile'
25 --display display-name
27 Specify the X display on which to open pterm. (Note this option
28 has a double minus sign, even though none of the others do. This
29 is because this option is supplied automatically by GTK. Sorry.)
30 -name name
32 Specify the name under which pterm looks up X resources. Nor‐
33 mally it will look them up as (for example) pterm.Font. If you
34 specify `-name xyz', it will look them up as xyz.Font instead.
35 This allows you to set up several different sets of defaults and
36 choose between them.
37 -fn font-name
39 Specify the font to use for normal text displayed in the termi‐
40 nal. For example, -fn fixed, -fn "Monospace 12".
41 -fb font-name
43 Specify the font to use for bold text displayed in the terminal.
44 If the BoldAsColour resource is set to 1 (the default), bold
45 text will be displayed in different colours instead of a differ‐
46 ent font, so this option will be ignored. If BoldAsColour is set
47 to 0 or 2 and you do not specify a bold font, pterm will over‐
48 print the normal font to make it look bolder.
49 -fw font-name
51 Specify the font to use for double-width characters (typically
52 Chinese, Japanese and Korean text) displayed in the terminal.
53 -fwb font-name
55 Specify the font to use for bold double-width characters (typi‐
56 cally Chinese, Japanese and Korean text). Like -fb, this will be
57 ignored unless the BoldAsColour resource is set to 0 or 2.
58 -geometry geometry
60 Specify the size of the terminal, in rows and columns of text.
61 See X(7) for more information on the syntax of geometry specifi‐
62 cations.
63 -sl lines
65 Specify the number of lines of scrollback to save off the top of
66 the terminal.
67 -fg colour
69 Specify the foreground colour to use for normal text.
70 -bg colour
72 Specify the background colour to use for normal text.
73 -bfg colour
75 Specify the foreground colour to use for bold text, if the
76 BoldAsColour resource is set to 1 (the default) or 2.
77 -bbg colour
79 Specify the foreground colour to use for bold reverse-video
80 text, if the BoldAsColour resource is set to 1 (the default) or
81 2. (This colour is best thought of as the bold version of the
82 background colour; so it only appears when text is displayed in
83 the background colour.)
84 -cfg colour
86 Specify the foreground colour to use for text covered by the
87 cursor.
88 -cbg colour
90 Specify the background colour to use for text covered by the
91 cursor. In other words, this is the main colour of the cursor.
92 -title title
94 Specify the initial title of the terminal window. (This can be
95 changed under control of the server.)
96 -ut- or +ut
98 Tells pterm not to record your login in the utmp, wtmp and last‐
99 log system log files; so you will not show up on finger or who
100 listings, for example.
101 -ut Tells pterm to record your login in utmp, wtmp and lastlog: this
103 is the opposite of -ut-. This is the default option: you will
104 probably only need to specify it explicitly if you have changed
105 the default using the StampUtmp resource.
106 -ls- or +ls
108 Tells pterm not to execute your shell as a login shell.
109 -ls Tells pterm to execute your shell as a login shell: this is the
111 opposite of -ls-. This is the default option: you will probably
112 only need to specify it explicitly if you have changed the de‐
113 fault using the LoginShell resource.
114 -sb- or +sb
116 Tells pterm not to display a scroll bar.
117 -sb Tells pterm to display a scroll bar: this is the opposite of
119 -sb-. This is the default option: you will probably only need to
120 specify it explicitly if you have changed the default using the
121 ScrollBar resource.
122 -log logfile, -sessionlog logfile
124 This option makes pterm log all the terminal output to a file as
125 well as displaying it in the terminal.
126 -cs charset
128 This option specifies the character set in which pterm should
129 assume the session is operating. This character set will be used
130 to interpret all the data received from the session, and all in‐
131 put you type or paste into pterm will be converted into this
132 character set before being sent to the session.
133 Any character set name which is valid in a MIME header (and sup‐
135 ported by pterm) should be valid here (examples are
136 `ISO-8859-1', `windows-1252' or `UTF-8'). Also, any character
137 encoding which is valid in an X logical font description should
138 be valid (`ibm-cp437', for example).
139 pterm's default behaviour is to use the same character encoding
141 as its primary font. If you supply a Unicode (iso10646-1) font,
142 it will default to the UTF-8 character set.
143 Character set names are case-insensitive.
145 -nethack
147 Tells pterm to enable NetHack keypad mode, in which the numeric
148 keypad generates the NetHack hjklyubn direction keys. This en‐
149 ables you to play NetHack with the numeric keypad without having
150 to use the NetHack number_pad option (which requires you to
151 press `n' before any repeat count). So you can move with the nu‐
152 meric keypad, and enter repeat counts with the normal number
153 keys.
154 -xrm resource-string
156 This option specifies an X resource string. Useful for setting
157 resources which do not have their own command-line options. For
158 example:
159 pterm -xrm 'ScrollbarOnLeft: 1'
161 -help, --help
163 Display a message summarizing the available options.
164 -pgpfp Display the fingerprints of the PuTTY PGP Master Keys, to aid in
166 verifying new files released by the PuTTY team.
167
169 pterm can be more completely configured by means of X resources. All of
170 these resources are of the form pterm.FOO for some FOO; you can make
171 pterm look them up under another name, such as xyz.FOO, by specifying
172 the command-line option `-name xyz'.
173 pterm.CloseOnExit
175 This option should be set to 0, 1 or 2; the default is 2. It
176 controls what pterm does when the process running inside it ter‐
177 minates. When set to 2 (the default), pterm will close its win‐
178 dow as soon as the process inside it terminates. When set to 0,
179 pterm will print the process's exit status, and the window will
180 remain present until a key is pressed (allowing you to inspect
181 the scrollback, and copy and paste text out of it).
182 When this setting is set to 1, pterm will close immediately if
184 the process exits cleanly (with an exit status of zero), but the
185 window will stay around if the process exits with a non-zero
186 code or on a signal. This enables you to see what went wrong if
187 the process suffers an error, but not to have to bother closing
188 the window in normal circumstances.
189 pterm.WarnOnClose
191 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
192 When set to 1, pterm will ask for confirmation before closing
193 its window when you press the close button.
194 pterm.TerminalType
196 This controls the value set in the TERM environment variable in‐
197 side the new terminal. The default is `xterm'.
198 pterm.BackspaceIsDelete
200 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
201 When set to 0, the ordinary Backspace key generates the
202 Backspace character (^H); when set to 1, it generates the Delete
203 character (^?). Whichever one you set, the terminal device in‐
204 side pterm will be set up to expect it.
205 pterm.RXVTHomeEnd
207 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
208 When it is set to 1, the Home and End keys generate the control
209 sequences they would generate in the rxvt terminal emulator, in‐
210 stead of the more usual ones generated by other emulators.
211 pterm.LinuxFunctionKeys
213 This option can be set to any number between 0 and 5 inclusive;
214 the default is 0. The modes vary the control sequences sent by
215 the function keys; for more complete documentation, it is proba‐
216 bly simplest to try each option in `pterm -e cat', and press the
217 keys to see what they generate.
218 pterm.NoApplicationKeys
220 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
221 When set to 1, it stops the server from ever switching the nu‐
222 meric keypad into application mode (where the keys send func‐
223 tion-key-like sequences instead of numbers or arrow keys). You
224 probably only need this if some application is making a nuisance
225 of itself.
226 pterm.NoApplicationCursors
228 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
229 When set to 1, it stops the server from ever switching the cur‐
230 sor keys into application mode (where the keys send slightly
231 different sequences). You probably only need this if some appli‐
232 cation is making a nuisance of itself.
233 pterm.NoMouseReporting
235 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
236 When set to 1, it stops the server from ever enabling mouse re‐
237 porting mode (where mouse clicks are sent to the application in‐
238 stead of controlling cut and paste).
239 pterm.NoRemoteResize
241 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
242 When set to 1, it stops the server from being able to remotely
243 control the size of the pterm window.
244 pterm.NoAltScreen
246 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
247 When set to 1, it stops the server from using the `alternate
248 screen' terminal feature, which lets full-screen applications
249 leave the screen exactly the way they found it.
250 pterm.NoRemoteWinTitle
252 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
253 When set to 1, it stops the server from remotely controlling the
254 title of the pterm window.
255 pterm.NoRemoteQTitle
257 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
258 When set to 1, it stops the server from remotely requesting the
259 title of the pterm window.
260 This feature is a POTENTIAL SECURITY HAZARD. If a malicious ap‐
262 plication can write data to your terminal (for example, if you
263 merely cat a file owned by someone else on the server machine),
264 it can change your window title (unless you have disabled this
265 using the NoRemoteWinTitle resource) and then use this service
266 to have the new window title sent back to the server as if typed
267 at the keyboard. This allows an attacker to fake keypresses and
268 potentially cause your server-side applications to do things you
269 didn't want. Therefore this feature is disabled by default, and
270 we recommend you do not turn it on unless you really know what
271 you are doing.
272 pterm.NoDBackspace
274 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
275 When set to 1, it disables the normal action of the Delete (^?)
276 character when sent from the server to the terminal, which is to
277 move the cursor left by one space and erase the character now
278 under it.
279 pterm.ApplicationCursorKeys
281 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
282 When set to 1, the default initial state of the cursor keys are
283 application mode (where the keys send function-key-like se‐
284 quences instead of numbers or arrow keys). When set to 0, the
285 default state is the normal one.
286 pterm.ApplicationKeypad
288 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
289 When set to 1, the default initial state of the numeric keypad
290 is application mode (where the keys send function-key-like se‐
291 quences instead of numbers or arrow keys). When set to 0, the
292 default state is the normal one.
293 pterm.NetHackKeypad
295 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
296 When set to 1, the numeric keypad operates in NetHack mode. This
297 is equivalent to the -nethack command-line option.
298 pterm.Answerback
300 This option controls the string which the terminal sends in re‐
301 sponse to receiving the ^E character (`tell me about yourself').
302 By default this string is `PuTTY'.
303 pterm.HideMousePtr
305 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
306 When it is set to 1, the mouse pointer will disappear if it is
307 over the pterm window and you press a key. It will reappear as
308 soon as you move it.
309 pterm.WindowBorder
311 This option controls the number of pixels of space between the
312 text in the pterm window and the window frame. The default is 1.
313 You can increase this value, but decreasing it to 0 is not rec‐
314 ommended because it can cause the window manager's size hints to
315 work incorrectly.
316 pterm.CurType
318 This option should be set to either 0, 1 or 2; the default is 0.
319 When set to 0, the text cursor displayed in the window is a rec‐
320 tangular block. When set to 1, the cursor is an underline; when
321 set to 2, it is a vertical line.
322 pterm.BlinkCur
324 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
325 When it is set to 1, the text cursor will blink when the window
326 is active.
327 pterm.Beep
329 This option should be set to either 0 or 2 (yes, 2); the default
330 is 0. When it is set to 2, pterm will respond to a bell charac‐
331 ter (^G) by flashing the window instead of beeping.
332 pterm.BellOverload
334 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
335 When it is set to 1, pterm will watch out for large numbers of
336 bells arriving in a short time and will temporarily disable the
337 bell until they stop. The idea is that if you cat a binary file,
338 the frantic beeping will mostly be silenced by this feature and
339 will not drive you crazy.
340 The bell overload mode is activated by receiving N bells in time
342 T; after a further time S without any bells, overload mode will
343 turn itself off again.
344 Bell overload mode is always deactivated by any keypress in the
346 terminal. This means it can respond to large unexpected streams
347 of data, but does not interfere with ordinary command-line ac‐
348 tivities that generate beeps (such as filename completion).
349 pterm.BellOverloadN
351 This option counts the number of bell characters which will ac‐
352 tivate bell overload if they are received within a length of
353 time T. The default is 5.
354 pterm.BellOverloadT
356 This option specifies the time period in which receiving N or
357 more bells will activate bell overload mode. It is measured in
358 microseconds, so (for example) set it to 1000000 for one second.
359 The default is 2000000 (two seconds).
360 pterm.BellOverloadS
362 This option specifies the time period of silence required to
363 turn off bell overload mode. It is measured in microseconds, so
364 (for example) set it to 1000000 for one second. The default is
365 5000000 (five seconds of silence).
366 pterm.ScrollbackLines
368 This option specifies how many lines of scrollback to save above
369 the visible terminal screen. The default is 200. This resource
370 is equivalent to the -sl command-line option.
371 pterm.DECOriginMode
373 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0. It
374 specifies the default state of DEC Origin Mode. (If you don't
375 know what that means, you probably don't need to mess with it.)
376 pterm.AutoWrapMode
378 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1. It
379 specifies the default state of auto wrap mode. When set to 1,
380 very long lines will wrap over to the next line on the terminal;
381 when set to 0, long lines will be squashed against the right-
382 hand edge of the screen.
383 pterm.LFImpliesCR
385 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
386 When set to 1, the terminal will return the cursor to the left
387 side of the screen when it receives a line feed character.
388 pterm.WinTitle
390 This resource is the same as the -T command-line option: it con‐
391 trols the initial title of the window. The default is `pterm'.
392 pterm.TermWidth
394 This resource is the same as the width part of the -geometry
395 command-line option: it controls the number of columns of text
396 in the window. The default is 80.
397 pterm.TermHeight
399 This resource is the same as the width part of the -geometry
400 command-line option: it controls the number of columns of text
401 in the window. The defaults is 24.
402 pterm.Font
404 This resource is the same as the -fn command-line option: it
405 controls the font used to display normal text. The default is
406 `fixed'.
407 pterm.BoldFont
409 This resource is the same as the -fb command-line option: it
410 controls the font used to display bold text when BoldAsColour is
411 set to 0 or 2. The default is unset (the font will be bolded by
412 printing it twice at a one-pixel offset).
413 pterm.WideFont
415 This resource is the same as the -fw command-line option: it
416 controls the font used to display double-width characters. The
417 default is unset (double-width characters cannot be displayed).
418 pterm.WideBoldFont
420 This resource is the same as the -fwb command-line option: it
421 controls the font used to display double-width characters in
422 bold, when BoldAsColour is set to 0 or 2. The default is unset
423 (double-width characters are displayed in bold by printing them
424 twice at a one-pixel offset).
425 pterm.ShadowBoldOffset
427 This resource can be set to an integer; the default is ‐1. It
428 specifies the offset at which text is overprinted when using
429 `shadow bold' mode. The default (1) means that the text will be
430 printed in the normal place, and also one character to the
431 right; this seems to work well for most X bitmap fonts, which
432 have a blank line of pixels down the right-hand side. For some
433 fonts, you may need to set this to ‐1, so that the text is over‐
434 printed one pixel to the left; for really large fonts, you may
435 want to set it higher than 1 (in one direction or the other).
436 pterm.BoldAsColour
438 This option should be set to either 0, 1, or 2; the default is
439 1. It specifies how bold text should be displayed. When set to
440 1, bold text is shown by displaying it in a brighter colour;
441 when set to 0, bold text is shown by displaying it in a heavier
442 font; when set to 2, both effects happen at once (a heavy font
443 and a brighter colour).
444 pterm.Colour0, pterm.Colour1, ..., pterm.Colour21
446 These options control the various colours used to display text
447 in the pterm window. Each one should be specified as a triple of
448 decimal numbers giving red, green and blue values: so that black
449 is `0,0,0', white is `255,255,255', red is `255,0,0' and so on.
450 Colours 0 and 1 specify the foreground colour and its bold
452 equivalent (the -fg and -bfg command-line options). Colours 2
453 and 3 specify the background colour and its bold equivalent (the
454 -bg and -bbg command-line options). Colours 4 and 5 specify the
455 text and block colours used for the cursor (the -cfg and -cbg
456 command-line options). Each even number from 6 to 20 inclusive
457 specifies the colour to be used for one of the ANSI primary
458 colour specifications (black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta,
459 cyan, white, in that order); the odd numbers from 7 to 21 inclu‐
460 sive specify the bold version of each colour, in the same order.
461 The defaults are:
462 pterm.Colour0: 187,187,187
464 pterm.Colour1: 255,255,255
465 pterm.Colour2: 0,0,0
466 pterm.Colour3: 85,85,85
467 pterm.Colour4: 0,0,0
468 pterm.Colour5: 0,255,0
469 pterm.Colour6: 0,0,0
470 pterm.Colour7: 85,85,85
471 pterm.Colour8: 187,0,0
472 pterm.Colour9: 255,85,85
473 pterm.Colour10: 0,187,0
474 pterm.Colour11: 85,255,85
475 pterm.Colour12: 187,187,0
476 pterm.Colour13: 255,255,85
477 pterm.Colour14: 0,0,187
478 pterm.Colour15: 85,85,255
479 pterm.Colour16: 187,0,187
480 pterm.Colour17: 255,85,255
481 pterm.Colour18: 0,187,187
482 pterm.Colour19: 85,255,255
483 pterm.Colour20: 187,187,187
484 pterm.Colour21: 255,255,255
485 pterm.RectSelect
487 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
488 When set to 0, dragging the mouse over several lines selects to
489 the end of each line and from the beginning of the next; when
490 set to 1, dragging the mouse over several lines selects a rec‐
491 tangular region. In each case, holding down Alt while dragging
492 gives the other behaviour.
493 pterm.MouseOverride
495 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
496 When set to 1, if the application requests mouse tracking (so
497 that mouse clicks are sent to it instead of doing selection),
498 holding down Shift will revert the mouse to normal selection.
499 When set to 0, mouse tracking completely disables selection.
500 pterm.Printer
502 This option is unset by default. If you set it, then server-con‐
503 trolled printing is enabled: the server can send control se‐
504 quences to request data to be sent to a printer. That data will
505 be piped into the command you specify here; so you might want to
506 set it to `lpr', for example, or `lpr -Pmyprinter'.
507 pterm.ScrollBar
509 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
510 When set to 0, the scrollbar is hidden (although Shift-PageUp
511 and Shift-PageDown still work). This is the same as the -sb com‐
512 mand-line option.
513 pterm.ScrollbarOnLeft
515 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
516 When set to 1, the scrollbar will be displayed on the left of
517 the terminal instead of on the right.
518 pterm.ScrollOnKey
520 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
521 When set to 1, any keypress causes the position of the scroll‐
522 back to be reset to the very bottom.
523 pterm.ScrollOnDisp
525 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
526 When set to 1, any activity in the display causes the position
527 of the scrollback to be reset to the very bottom.
528 pterm.LineCodePage
530 This option specifies the character set to be used for the ses‐
531 sion. This is the same as the -cs command-line option.
532 pterm.NoRemoteCharset
534 This option disables the terminal's ability to change its char‐
535 acter set when it receives escape sequences telling it to. You
536 might need to do this to interoperate with programs which incor‐
537 rectly change the character set to something they think is sen‐
538 sible.
539 pterm.BCE
541 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
542 When set to 1, the various control sequences that erase parts of
543 the terminal display will erase in whatever the current back‐
544 ground colour is; when set to 0, they will erase in black al‐
545 ways.
546 pterm.BlinkText
548 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
549 When set to 1, text specified as blinking by the server will ac‐
550 tually blink on and off; when set to 0, pterm will use the less
551 distracting approach of making the text's background colour
552 bold.
553 pterm.StampUtmp
555 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
556 When set to 1, pterm will log the login in the various system
557 log files. This resource is equivalent to the -ut command-line
558 option.
559 pterm.LoginShell
561 This option should be set to either 0 or 1; the default is 1.
562 When set to 1, pterm will execute your shell as a login shell.
563 This resource is equivalent to the -ls command-line option.
564
566 Most of the X resources have silly names. (Historical reasons from
567 PuTTY, mostly.)
568PuTTY tool suite 2004‐03‐24 pterm(1)