putty-export 0.1.3

Export PuTTY session settings from Windows registry to OpenSSH config format

putty-export

Export PuTTY session settings from a Windows registry (.reg) file to OpenSSH ~/.ssh/config format.

Usage

# Print SSH config to stdout
putty-export putty_sessions.reg

# Write to a file
putty-export putty_sessions.reg -o ~/.ssh/config

# Include the "Default Settings" template session (normally skipped)
putty-export putty_sessions.reg --include-default-settings -o config

Exporting PuTTY sessions from Windows

1. Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions.
3. Right-click Sessions and choose Export.
4. Save as a .reg file (e.g. putty_sessions.reg) and transfer it to the machine where you run putty-export.

PuTTY → OpenSSH mapping

PuTTY (registry)	OpenSSH config	Notes
Session name (from key path)	Host	URL-decoded (e.g. %20 → space).
HostName	HostName	Decoded from UTF-16LE.
PortNumber	Port	Default 22 if missing.
UserName	User	Omitted if empty.
PublicKeyFile	IdentityFile	Path normalized to forward slashes. See Keys below.
ProxyMethod + ProxyHost/Port/Username	ProxyCommand or ProxyJump	See Proxy below.
PortForwardings	LocalForward / RemoteForward / DynamicForward	Comma-separated: Lport=host:port, Rport=host:port, Dport.
AgentFwd	ForwardAgent	1 → yes (omitted when 0).
Compression	Compression	1 → yes (omitted when 0).
X11Forward	ForwardX11	1 → yes (omitted when 0).

Keys

• IdentityFile is written with the path from PuTTY (backslashes converted to forward slashes). PuTTY uses .ppk keys; OpenSSH uses PEM/OpenSSH format. Convert keys with:

  puttygen key.ppk -O private-openssh -o ~/.ssh/key_openssh
  

  Then point IdentityFile at the converted file, or replace the path in the generated config.

Proxy

• ProxyMethod 0 = none (no directive). 1 = SOCKS → ProxyCommand nc -x host:port %h %p. 2 = HTTP CONNECT → ProxyCommand connect -H host:port %h %p. 3/4 = Telnet/Local → ProxyCommand from ProxyTelnetCommand. 5 = SSH proxy → ProxyJump user@host.
• ProxyPassword is not stored in SSH config. Use key-based auth or other means for proxy/jump host authentication.

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• No external dependencies (stdlib only).

Installation

pip install -e .

Development

Run tests:

python -m unittest discover -s tests -v