• Source: https://github.com/nickryand/vagrant-multi-putty

This plugin allows you to use putty to ssh into VMs. It has been tested on Windows and should also work on Linux. Multi-vm environments are supported.

Vagrant > 1.1.X

To install for Vagrant versions > 1.1

$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-multi-putty

Download: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Download the putty executable for your platform and add it's location to your PATH environment variable. Seek your operating system manual for instructions on how to modify your PATH variable.

Download: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Putty uses a custom format for SSH keys. It does not support openssl keys directly. Using PuTTYgen, you can convert the private key shipped with vagrant or convert a private key of your own.

1. Open puttygen and click the Conversions -> Import Key menu option.
2. Select the insecure_private_key located at ~/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
3. Click the "Save private key" button and store the key right along side the insecure key.
4. Answer yes when prompted to save without a password.
5. Save the key using the filename of "insecure_private_key.ppk".

If you do not explicity set the config.putty.private_key_path variable, you need to convert the insecure_private_key and store it with a ".ppk" extension. The vagrant-multi-putty plugin appends this extension automatically.

As of Vagrant 1.4.0, the config.ssh.private_key_path variable is converted into an array. This allows multiple SSH keys to be passed to ssh. PuTTY does not allow for a list of ssh keys via the command line. Therefore, if the config.putty.private_key_path variable is not set, we attempt to use the first key in the config.ssh.private_key_path list and append the '.ppk' extension to it.

Most of the ssh configuration options used to control vagrant ssh also control vagrant-multi-putty. The following Vagrantfile options are NOT used by vagrant-multi-putty:

• config.ssh.max_tries
• config.ssh.timeout
• config.ssh.private_key_path
• config.ssh.shell

All other config.ssh options should work for vagrant-multi-putty just like they do for vagrant ssh.

There are currently a few additional configuration parameters available:

• config.putty.username: Overrides the username set with config.ssh.username.
• config.putty.private_key_path: Used to explicity set the path to the private key variable. When set to :agent, no private key file is supplied and PuTTY will try private keys loaded by Pageant.
• config.putty.modal: change vagrant-multi-putty to use modal window mode. Execute putty and block the terminal until all putty processes have exited. Can be set on the command line with -m or --modal. This is false by default.
• config.putty.after_modal: Configure a post hook block that will be called once all child putty processes have exited and modal mode is enabled. The default block is empty.
• config.putty.session: Load settings from a saved putty session.

This is an example which uses the the win32-activate gem written by nazoking. This only works on windows since win32-activate uses the win32 API.

Github Page: https://github.com/nazoking/win32-activate

After all putty windows are closed, the terminal window used to run the 'vagrant putty' command will be brought into focus and placed on top of all open windows.

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  # always modal mode
  config.putty.modal = true
  # set hook.
  config.putty.after_modal do
    require 'win32/activate'
    Win32::Activate.active
  end
end

Basic usage:

vagrant putty

Login into a single vm in a multiple vm environment:

vagrant putty <name of vm>

Pass putty options directly to the putty binary:

vagrant putty -- -l testuser -i <path to private key>