Frequently asked
questions.

Yes. SmarTTY has been free since its first release in 2012. There are no pro tiers, no trial limits, and no features locked behind a paywall. Every feature shown on this site is available to everyone at no cost.

Windows 10 and Windows 11, 64-bit. SmarTTY 2.x supported older versions such as Windows 7 and 8.1, but v3.0 requires Windows 10 or later. Both the installer and portable versions are 64-bit only.

No. The portable ZIP version runs directly from any folder, including a USB drive, without touching the registry or system directories. The installer version adds a Start Menu shortcut and file associations for .smartty session files, but the application itself is otherwise identical to the portable build.

Download the new installer or portable ZIP from the downloads page and run it over your existing installation. All your saved hosts, connection preferences, and settings are preserved — the updater does not reset your configuration.

Smart Terminal mode hooks into your remote shell to provide real-time file and command completion, a live directory browser panel on the side, and clickable file:line links in compiler output. It works with bash, zsh, and fish — no server-side daemon or configuration required beyond setting your shell as the login shell.

A single SSH connection can carry approximately 10 sub-sessions through the SSH multiplexing channel mechanism. Each tab in SmarTTY is a separate channel over the same underlying connection, so you do not need to authenticate again for each new tab. The exact limit depends on the server's MaxSessions setting in sshd_config.

Yes. SmarTTY has built-in SCP support with a graphical file browser for the remote filesystem. You can upload and download individual files or entire directory trees, and for large folders SmarTTY can use on-the-fly TAR compression for faster transfers. You can also open remote files directly in the built-in editor — changes are saved back to the server transparently over SCP.

Yes. You can generate an RSA, ECDSA, or Ed25519 key pair directly inside SmarTTY, and it will deploy the public key to the server's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file with a single click. The private key is stored securely in the Windows Credential Manager, so your passphrase is never written to disk in plaintext.

The hex terminal connects to COM (serial) ports or raw TCP sockets and displays the live data stream as ASCII, hex, or both columns side by side. It is primarily used for debugging embedded systems and microcontrollers over serial, testing custom TCP protocols, and inspecting binary streams from serial devices. Incoming bytes are visually grouped by arrival packet, and complete sessions can be logged to disk.

Start with the basics: verify the hostname or IP address, the port number (default is 22), and your username and password or key. Next, confirm that the SSH service is actually running on the server — on Linux you can check with systemctl status sshd. Finally, ensure your local firewall and any network firewall between you and the server permit outbound TCP connections on the SSH port.

Smart Terminal requires bash, zsh, or fish as the remote user's login shell. If the account uses sh, dash, or another POSIX shell, Smart Terminal will not activate. Additionally, the terminal type must be compatible — make sure the TERM environment variable is set to xterm-256color on the server. You can verify this by running echo $TERM after connecting. Some minimal server images also strip the shell startup files that Smart Terminal depends on; re-adding ~/.bashrc usually resolves this.

First, make sure X11 forwarding is enabled in the SmarTTY session settings for that host. SmarTTY ships with both XMing and VcXsrv — open Preferences > X11 and select whichever X server you want to use. SmarTTY starts the X server automatically the moment you launch a GUI program, so you do not need to start it manually. If windows still don't appear, check that the remote server's sshd_config has X11Forwarding yes and that xauth is installed on the server (which xauth should return a path).

Yes. Open the connection settings for the destination host and go to the Advanced tab. There you can configure a jump host (also called a bastion or proxy) by entering its address and credentials. SmarTTY will tunnel the SSH connection through the jump host transparently, so the destination sees a connection from the jump host rather than your Windows machine.