Question

I am developing a java web application that needs to pass shell scripts to putty after user authentication. putty.exe should launch only if authentication is successful and if the script has begun running successfully.

Also, since different users might have installed putty in different locations on their systems. Is there any way to launch putty.exe without requiring the user to manually configure the path. Or is it possible to programmatically find the path and launch putty?

Answer 1

I will start by saying not having the user add putty to the path is most easily solved by creating a configuration file for each user, where one of the parameters will be the location of the putty executable. Properly handling this with default values and a dialogue box if putty can’t be opened would be simple and familiar to most users.

Two simple situations could completely mess with how you do a search for the executable: the user renames the putty executable or the user has multiple versions of putty.

To avoid getting stumped by the first situation you are going to have to ask for the new name and somehow save it in a config.

To avoid getting stumped by the second you are going to have to ask for the version of putty they want, store that version, and somehow do version checking if all you want to do is look for putty.exe (maybe you have a file of the checksum for each version).

This is just as, if not more annoying to the user (and definitely more annoying to you) than just asking them to point to the executable. There are more ways that things could go wrong, as well.

Basically, it is possible to search for the executable but it would not save anyone any trouble and would only make more for you. Having the user configure the path is not very tricky, but if you want to avoid it then the easiest thing is to have per-user configuration files with the putty path saved in it by your program.