How can I make PuTTY compatible with Solaris?

Question

I'm connecting to a Solaris machine from WinXP using PuTTY.

When I try to use the NumPad keys for editing a command in Bash (Home, End, Delete) a ~ character is instead printed to the console. Relevant envirnoment parameters as follows:

MACHTYPE=sparc-sun-solaris
SHELL=/bin/bash
HOSTTYPE=sparc
OSTYPE=solaris
TERM=xterm

Can I configure PuTTY to get the NumPad keys working?

Answer 1

The path of least resistance is to tell your shell on the Solaris box what the escape sequences sent by PuTTY mean. You see a ~ because these keys emit an escape sequence like ​␛[3~ where ​␛ is the escape character (\e, ASCII 27). Type Ctrl+V followed by one of the keys so that the ​␛ character is inserted literally, followed by the other characters. Then define bindings in the relevant file, which for bash is ~/.inputrc:

"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[4~": end-of-line

Answer 2

Install a terminfo entry (this can be done in your home directory if you do not have root access; you may need to set the TERMINFO variable) corresponding to the actual keys sent by putty. TERM=vt220 or vt420 might actually be close enough, but then you lose color.

This page has some that might work - install terminfo entries with tic, and if necessary you can get termcap data with infocmp -C.

If this doesn't work, you could experiment with different settings for function keys in the putty settings: if it's just home and end that don't work, try xterm - if nothing works, maybe try SCO ANSI and then set the terminfo to e.g. something corresponding to e.g. freebsd console which uses the same keys.