Recommend SSH clients that are free (preferably open source) for (at least) Windows which support infinite scrolling

Question

Problem: I'm currently using PuTTY for SSHing into our server from a Windows machine but, because its output buffer is limited, when I have a large (few hundred screens' worth) amount of data sent from the server the top part is lost. Logging doesn't really cut the mustard either because it's such a faff to find the log file and mess about with it.

Question: Is there anything out there which buffers the entire session or at least allows me to dynamically increase the buffer by a few MB (whilst in the session)?

Suggestions are very welcome. Perhaps there is a front end program which you have used that gives this functionality?

-Please be gentle, this is my first question. Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Granted, this is not the most robust solution, however in PuTTY you can configure the number of lines of scrollback to be saved. Setting this to an extremely high value, say 2147483647 (the maximum value possible), could help you out. You would in effect have the biggest screen buffer PuTTY could give you. Also, mid-session you can change this value by accessing the system menu and selecting "Change Settings."

Answer 2

Just turn logging on and have it dumped to a text file.

Answer 3

I'd suggest using screen on the remote side. It allows you to specify how much scroll buffer to save (see here) and a lot of other useful amenities.

Furthermore, it's client-independent: if you'll have to log in tomorrow from another computer, not only you can leave your sessions open, but also it will keep your preferences.

It's generally a life-saver.

Another nice tool is tmux; similar functionalities, more goodies, etc. Not sure it can be applied to your scenario, though.

Answer 4

Still not a client based solution, as with the others listed, but another option is script which logs an entire session. See man script for more information (or some online copy of the man page like here).

You could combine this with less running in another SSH clietn window (or another window in a screen session). If you do something like mkfifo /tmp/scriptpipe; script -f /tmp/scriptpipe you can view this using something like cat /tmp/scriptpipe | less - the less tool will let you scroll back and forth as needed. The extra advantage of this is that you can keep the view scrolled back while typing new commands into the active session (useful for doing new work referring to commands+output from some time ago).

I recommend using screen in conjunction with this, either with both the active session and less in separate windows of the screen session or each in a separate screen session in separate clients - this means you can reconnect easily, losing no work/output, if you suffer a connection drop mid-session.

If you want to record the session to file as well as sending a copy through the pipe to less, do something like cat /tmp/scriptpipe | tee /file/to/save/sessionlog/to | less.

Answer 5

I use a value of 99 999 lines for the backscroll and never had any problem. Of course, this will consume memory like hell, but with today's PC, this should not be an issue.

Answer 6

Whenever you think you're going to be running a large command and need all the output type it like this:

command > logfile.txt

Then you can cat or retrieve the file to your local machine to view.