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I often SSH to remote computers using PuTTY.

You know what really annoys me? Those 4-8 seconds from the moment I launch PuTTY to the moment the server responds with the prompt and I can start typing.

I wouldn't mind the wait, but unlike most other GUI/CLI interfaces, I can't type during the wait time! I want to be able to start typing stuff while I'm waiting for the server to respond, and then have the server execute the command when it's ready.

Possible? How?

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I doubt it's possible to change this. Whenever I use PuTTY the server been quite quick to respond, so I can't even replicate your issue. – Stuart McLaughlin Sep 8 '11 at 14:23
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What @Ram details is correct (my server is slow as well). It's worth a note that if you type while the connection is being established, your command will be chopped as the server will not recieve your keyboard input until the connection is complete. However, you can type while a command is being executed and the prompt hasn't been returned, without any problems. – rlb.usa Sep 8 '11 at 19:04
I think your best bet here may be to simply keep your PuTTY window/connection open so you won't have to wait for it to connect so often. (unhelpful, I know) – rlb.usa Sep 8 '11 at 19:07
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5 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Things one could try to speed-up the connection :

  1. DNS Reverse Lookup settings generally cause SSH connections to be very slow and can take several seconds. If you can, put your client side IP address into the /etc/hosts file on the server.
  2. An alternative to the first point is to edit the SSH config file (/etc/ssh/sshd_config) and add a "UseDNS no" line (or change the existing one). Then restart sshd via sudo etc/init.d/ssh restart.
  3. Try using the IP address of the server instead of the server name
  4. For completeness, on Linux one could also check the order of the nameserver entries in /etc/resolve.conf.

If none of this helps, you could try turning on the Logging panel and see if there are any interesting messages in it.

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up vote 2 down vote
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Try to enable Local Echo and Local line editing.

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That solves the problem, but then Local Echo and Local Line Editing stay on during the entire session, which is really annoying. – Ram Rachum Sep 17 '11 at 13:18
That's true, but I think there is no Solution for this. – gyger Sep 20 '11 at 19:43
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up vote 1 down vote

It might be trivial but what I suggest to do to limit this "discomfort" and to speed up putty a bit is to:

  1. open a notepad window and have your commands typed there.
  2. launch putty
  3. copy and paste your commands from notepad to putty window after the server starts to respond eventually.
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up vote 0 down vote

Start by doing some packet captures from both ends. You won't be able to see the entire conversation, but you should be able to get the timing details of the session setup. Check to see if the server is doing anything like DNS lookup or running login scripts during that time.

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up vote -1 down vote

Use CygWin, it's even possible to use putty as your default cygwin terminal. With cygwin you have your good old openssh client back.

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PuTTY is pretty awesome actually, thank you. – Ram Rachum Sep 17 '11 at 17:01
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