PuTTy | Log All Session

PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform and is open source software that is available with source code and is developed and supported by a group of volunteers.

You can download it for free here.

Putty has the option to log telnet and SSH traffic session output to disk. I think it’s a good idea to always log the telnet and SSH session output of every session to a file. In this way you always have a great reference/history available, which contains all previous commands and output of earlier telnet and SSH sessions.

Configure Putty:

When you want putty to log all your session output, you have to change the default settings. This is pretty simple: open Putty and go to Session -> Logging. Select "All Session Output" and specify a log file.

I am using some putty parameters which will make every session unique, in this case “&H__&D-&M-&Y__&T.txt”, which means:

• &H = hostname for the session;

• &Y = year;

• &M = month;

• &D = day;

• &T = time.

Next step is save this new log settings to the "Default Settings" profile in Putty.

Every new putty session will now log its output to a (new) logfile. Already saved sessions will not be affected by this setting, you have to change these sessions separately.

You will now end up with a bunch of unique log files for the various putty sessions and you’re building your own great putty-reference-database in the log directory specified.

TIP: Don't forget to change your "Lines of scrollback" to whatever value you wish. I usually set the value of 99999999.

Never lost your output beyond scroll!