Site Manager

FortressCL Site Manager allows you to manage FortressCL Site Profiles. Initially, without any profiles created, the Site Manager looks like the following:

A new site can be added using either the Add Site button or the Connection Wizard button .
If the Wizard is used, then the new site will be added with all the fields filled from the wizard. If the Add button is used then an empty site will be added with the name "New Site". Fill all the pages with the appropriate information.

Site Name: A descriptive name for easily identifying the site during current and future use of FortressCL.

Host address: The hostname or IP address of the remote server.

Protocol: Choose your preferred protocol from the drop down menu. Options available are: SSH1, SSH2, and Telnet.

Port: The port number of the remote server. 22 is the default ssh port for SSH connection. Port automatically changes to the default value of 23 if you select "Telnet" as your protocol from the drop down menu.

 
Authentication

Password Authentication: To connect via Password Authentication, select the Password radio button. In the Username and Password field, enter a valid username & password.

NTLM Authentication: To connect via NTLM Authentication, Click on the NTLM radio button and click on the Connect button. For more information on Authentication methods supported for FortressCL, click here.

Certificate Authentication: To connect via Certificate Authentication, Click on the Certificate radio button. Under the Certificate field, specify the location of your private key file. Then click on the Connect button.

Logging

Session Logging: select preferred logging option. To turn off loggin, select "Loggging off". To print out session logs, select "Printable output". To log all session output, select "All session output". To log SSH packets only, select "Log ssh packets".

Under Log File Options, specify the location of the log file and select preferred log file option.

Keyboard

Sequences sent by special keys
- Backspace Key: Some terminals believe that the Backspace key should send the same thing to the server as Control-H (ASCII code 8). Other terminals believe that the Backspace key should send ASCII code 127 (usually known as Control-?) so that it can be distinguished from Control-H. This option allows you to choose which code FortressCL generates when you press Backspace.

- Function Keys & Keypad: This option affects the function keys (F1 to F12). For more information, click here.

- Home and End Keys: The Unix terminal emulator rxvt disagrees with the rest of the world about what character sequences should be sent to the server by the Home and End keys. Xterm, and other terminals, send ESC [1~ for the Home key, and ESC [4~ for the End key. rxvt sends ESC [H for the Home key and ESC [Ow for the End key. If you find an application on which the Home and End keys aren't working, you could try switching this option to see if it helps

Application Keypad Settings
- Initial State of Cursor Keys: Application Cursor Keys mode is a way for the server to change the control sequences sent by the arrow keys. In normal mode, the arrow keys send ESC [A through to ESC [D. In application mode, they send ESC OA through to ESC OD. Application Cursor Keys mode can be turned on and off by the server, depending on the application.
- Initial State of Numeric Keypad: Application Keypad mode is a way for the server to change the behaviour of the numeric keypad. In normal mode, the keypad behaves like a normal Windows keypad: with NumLock on, the number keys generate numbers, and with NumLock off they act like the arrow keys and Home, End etc.

Bell Style
- Bell Disabled: Selecting this option disables the bell completely. In this mode, the server can send as many Control-G characters as it likes and nothing at all will happen.
- Visual (Flash Screen): "Visual bell" is a silent alternative to a beeping computer. In this mode, when the server sends a Control-G, the whole FortressCL window will flash white for a fraction of a second.
- Default System Alert: is the default setting. It causes the Windows "Default Beep" sound to be played. To change what this sound is, or to test it if nothing seems to be happening, use the Sound configurer in the Windows Control Panel.
- Beep with PC Speaker: Selecting this option allows you to specify a particular sound file to be used by FortressCL alone, or even by a particular individual FortressCL session. This allows you to distinguish your FortressCL beeps from any other beeps on the system. If you select this option, you will also need to enter the name of your sound file in the edit control "Custom sound file to play as a bell".

 
Proxy

Proxy Type: radio buttons allow you to configure what type of proxy you want FortressCL to use for its network connections. The default setting is "None"; in this mode no proxy is used for any connection. Selecting "HTTP" allows you to proxy your connections through a web server supporting the HTTP CONNECT command, as documented in RFC 2817. Selecting "SOCKS 4" or "SOCKS 5" allows you to proxy your connections through a SOCKS server. Many firewalls implement a less formal type of proxy in which a user can make a Telnet connection directly to the firewall machine and enter a command such as connect myhost.com 22 to connect through to an external host. Selecting "Telnet" allows you to tell FortressCL to use this type of proxy.

Proxy Host: Enter the IP Address of the Proxy host.

Exclude Host / IP Addresses: you can enter ranges of IP addresses, or ranges of DNS names, for which FortressCL will avoid using the proxy and make a direct connection instead.

DNS Name Lookup at proxy end: This configuration option allows you to control this. If you set it to "No", FortressCL will always do its own DNS, and will always pass an IP address to the proxy. If you set it to "Yes", FortressCL will always pass host names straight to the proxy without trying to look them up first.

Username & Password: Enter a valid username and password for this proxy setting.

Telnet Command: If you are using the Telnet proxy type, the usual command required by the firewall's Telnet server is connect, followed by a host name and a port number. If your proxy needs a different command, you can enter an alternative here. In this string, you can use \n to represent a new-line, \r to represent a carriage return, \t to represent a tab character, and \x followed by two hex digits to represent any other character. \\ is used to encode the \ character itself. Also, the special strings %host and %port will be replaced by the host name and port number you want to connect to. The strings %user and %pass will be replaced by the proxy username and password you specify. To get a literal % sign, enter %%.If the Telnet proxy server prompts for a username and password before commands can be sent, you can use a command such as:

%user\n%pass\nconnect %host %port\n

This will send your username and password as the first two lines to the proxy, followed by a command to connect to the desired host and port. Note that if you do not include the %user or %pass tokens in the Telnet command, then the "Username" and "Password" configuration fields will be ignored.

Telnet

Terminal Speed String: The Telnet, Rlogin, and SSH protocols allow the client to specify terminal speeds to the server.This parameter does not affect the actual speed of the connection, which is always "as fast as possible"; it is just a hint that is sometimes used by server software to modify its behaviour. For instance, if a slow speed is indicated, the server may switch to a less bandwidth-hungry display mode. The value is usually meaningless in a network environment, but FortressCL lets you configure it, in case you find the server is reacting badly to the default value. The format is a pair of numbers separated by a comma, for instance, 38400,38400. The first number represents the output speed (from the server), and the second is the input speed (to the server). (Only the first is used in the Rlogin protocol.) This option has no effect on Raw connections.

Environment Variables: The Telnet protocol provides a means for the client to pass environment variables to the server. Many Telnet servers have stopped supporting this feature due to security flaws, but FortressCL still supports it for the benefit of any servers which have found other ways around the security problems than just disabling the whole mechanism. To add an environment variable to the list transmitted down the connection, you enter the variable name in the "Variable" box, enter its value in the "Value" box, and press the "Add" button. To remove one from the list, select it in the list box and press "Remove".

Telnet Negotiation Mode: In a Telnet connection, there are two types of data passed between the client and the server: actual text, and negotiations about which Telnet extra features to use. FortressCL can use two different strategies for negotiation: In active mode, FortressCL starts to send negotiations as soon as the connection is opened. In passive mode, FortressCL will wait to negotiate until it sees a negotiation from the server. The obvious disadvantage of passive mode is that if the server is also operating in a passive mode, then negotiation will never begin at all. For this reason FortressCL defaults to active mode. However, sometimes passive mode is required in order to successfully get through certain types of firewall and Telnet proxy server. If you have confusing trouble with a firewall, you could try enabling passive mode to see if it helps.

Terminal

Emulation: Select the preferred emulation from the drop down menu.

Line Discipline Options
- Local Echo: With local echo disabled, characters you type into the FortressCL window are not echoed in the window by FortressCL. They are simply sent to the server. (The server might choose to echo them back to you; this can't be controlled from the FortressCL control panel.) Some types of session need local echo, and many do not. In its default mode, FortressCL will automatically attempt to deduce whether or not local echo is appropriate for the session you are working in. If you find it has made the wrong decision, you can use this configuration option to override its choice: you can force local echo to be turned on, or force it to be turned off, instead of relying on the automatic detection.

- Local Line Editing: Normally, every character you type into the FortressCL window is sent immediately to the server the moment you type it. If you enable local line editing, this changes. FortressCL will let you edit a whole line at a time locally, and the line will only be sent to the server when you press Return. If you make a mistake, you can use the Backspace key to correct it before you press Return, and the server will never see the mistake.

 
Miscellaneous Terminal Options
- Answer back to ^E: This option controls what FortressCL will send back to the server if the server sends it the ^E enquiry character. Normally it just sends the string "FortressCL".

- Auto wrap on initially: Auto wrap mode controls what happens when text printed in a FortressCL window reaches the right-hand edge of the window. With auto wrap mode on, if a long line of text reaches the right-hand edge, it will wrap over on to the next line so you can still see all the text. With auto wrap mode off, the cursor will stay at the right-hand edge of the screen, and all the characters in the line will be printed on top of each other.

- DEC Origin Mode initially: DEC Origin Mode is a minor option which controls how FortressCL interprets cursor-position control sequences sent by the server.The server can send a control sequence that restricts the scrolling region of the display. For example, in an editor, the server might reserve a line at the top of the screen and a line at the bottom, and might send a control sequence that causes scrolling operations to affect only the remaining lines.With DEC Origin Mode on, cursor coordinates are counted from the top of the scrolling region. With it turned off, cursor coordinates are counted from the top of the whole screen regardless of the scrolling region.

- LF is implicitly treated as CR/LF: Most servers send two control characters, CR and LF, to start a new line of the screen. The CR character makes the cursor return to the left-hand side of the screen. The LF character makes the cursor move one line down (and might make the screen scroll). Some servers only send LF, and expect the terminal to move the cursor over to the left automatically. If you come across a server that does this, you will see a stepped effect on the screen, like this:
First line of text

  Second line

  Third line
If this happens to you, try enabling the "Implicit CR in every LF" option, and things might go back to normal:

First line of text

Second line

Third line

- Use background color on screen erase: Not all terminals agree on what colour to turn the screen when the server sends a "clear screen" sequence. Some terminals believe the screen should always be cleared to the default background colour. Others believe the screen should be cleared to whatever the server has selected as a background colour.

- Enable blinking text: The server can ask FortressCL to display text that blinks on and off. This is very distracting, so FortressCL allows you to turn blinking text off completely.

 
SSH

Command to be sent to the server: In SSH, you don't have to run a general shell session on the server. Instead, you can choose to run a single specific command (such as a mail user agent, for example). If you want to do this, enter the command in the "Remote command" box.

Protocol Options: Select your preferred SSH version.

Enable Compression: This enables data compression in the SSH connection: data sent by the server is compressed before sending, and decompressed at the client end. Likewise, data sent by FortressCL to the server is compressed first and the server decompresses it at the other end. This can help make the most of a low-bandwidth connection.

No pseudo-terminal allocaton: When connecting to a Unix system, most interactive shell sessions are run in a pseudo-terminal, which allows the Unix system to pretend it's talking to a real physical terminal device but allows the SSH server to catch all the data coming from that fake device and send it back to the client.

Cipher choice priority: FortressCL supports a variety of different encryption algorithms, and allows you to choose which one you prefer to use. You can do this by dragging the algorithms up and down in the list box (or moving them using the Up and Down buttons) to specify a preference order. When you make an SSH connection, FortressCL will search down the list from the top until it finds an algorithm supported by the server, and then use that.

Tunneling

Local Port accepts remote connections: Check this box to forward a local port to a remote destination.
Remote ports do the same: Check this box to forward a remote port to a local destination.
Currently forwarded ports: Displays the existing forwarded ports.

Add New Port Forwarding

Enter a source port number into the "Source port" box. For local forwardings, FortressCL will listen on this port of your PC. For remote forwardings, your SSH server will listen on this port of the remote machine. Note that most servers will not allow you to listen on port numbers less than 1024.

If you have selected "Local" or "Remote" (this step is not needed with "Dynamic"), enter a hostname and port number separated by a colon, in the "Destination" box. Connections received on the source port will be directed to this destination. For example, to connect to a POP-3 server, you might enter popserver.example.com:110. Click the "Add" button. Your forwarding details should appear in the list box. To remove a port forwarding, simply select its details in the list box, and click the "Remove" button.

In the "Source port" field, you can also optionally enter an IP address to listen on, by specifying (for instance) 127.0.0.5:79. See section 3.5 for more information on how this works and its restrictions. Enter Destination / Remote Port number in the Destination Port field.

Select "Dynamic" if you want FortressCL to provide a local SOCKS 4/4A/5 proxy on a local port.

Window

Window Size
- Rows: Enter a value for the number of ROWS preferred in the window.
- Columns: Enter a value for the number of COLUMNS preferred in the window.
Window Resize Action
- Change Number of Rows & Columns: Select this option to for the number of rows & columns to change automatically as the window size changes.

- Change Font Size: Select this option to change font size.
- Change Font Size if Maximized: Select this option to change font size when window is maximized.
- Disallow Resizing: Select this option to prevent window resizing.
Scrollback Settings
- Scrollback Lines: This option lets you configure how many lines of text FortressCL keeps. The "Display scrollbar" options allow you to hide the scrollbar (although you can still view the scrollback using Shift-PgUp and Shift-PgDn). You can separately configure whether the scrollbar is shown in full-screen mode and in normal modes.
- Display Scrollbar: Select this option to display scrollbars.
- Display Scrollbar in Full Screen Mode: Select this option to display scrollbar when viewing the window in full screen mode.

- Reset Scrollbar on keypress: This option allows you to make the screen revert when you press a key.
- Reset Scrollbar on Display Actions: If you are viewing part of the scrollback when the server sends more text to FortressCL, the screen will revert to showing the current terminal contents. You can disable this behaviour by turning offt this option.
- Push Erased Text in Scrollback: When this option is enabled, the contents of the terminal screen will be pushed into the scrollback when a server-side application clears the screen, so that your scrollback will contain a better record of what was on your screen in the past.

Appearance

Window Title: This field is empty by default. Enter a string in this field which will be used to set the Window Title of your FortressCL Window.

Cursor Settings
- Blinking Cursor: Check this box to so that the cursor will blink.
Cursor Look
- Block: For a BLOCK cursor, select this option.
- Underline: For a UNDERLINE cursor, select this option.
- Vertical Line: For a VERTICAL cursor, select this option.
Font Settings
- Font: Displays the current font.
- Size: Displays the current font size.
- Style: Displays the current font style.
- Change Font: Click on this button change font settings.

 
Translation

Data Charset: select your character set from the drop down menu "Data charset".

Line Drawing

VT100-series terminals allow the server to send control sequences that shift temporarily into a separate character set for drawing lines and boxes. FortressCL has a variety of ways to support this capability. In general you should probably try lots of options until you find one that your particular font supports.

- Font has XWindows encoding: is for use with fonts that have a special encoding, where the lowest 32 character positions (below the ASCII printable range) contain the line-drawing characters. This is unlikely to be the case with any standard Windows font; it will probably only apply to custom-built fonts or fonts that have been automatically converted from the X Window System.
- Use font in both ANSI and OEM modes: tries to use the same font in two different character sets, to obtain a wider range of characters. This doesn't always work; some fonts claim to be a different size depending on which character set you try to use.

- Use font in OEM mode only: is more reliable than that, but can miss out other characters from the main character set.

- Poor man's line drawing: assumes that the font cannot generate the line and box characters at all, so it will use the +, - and | characters to draw approximations to boxes. You should use this option if none of the other options works.

- Unicode mode: tries to use the box characters that are present in Unicode. For good Unicode-supporting fonts this is probably the most reliable and functional option.

Cap Lock is Crillic switch: Click on the checkbox enable / disable to "Cap Lock is Crillic switch" option. This feature allows you to switch between a US/UK keyboard layout and a Cyrillic keyboard layout by using the Caps Lock key, if you need to type (for example) Russian and English side by side in the same document. Currently this feature is not expected to work properly if your native keyboard layout is not US or UK.