The long-awaited update to Vandyke's SecureCRT has been finally released. SecureCRT 5.1 brings forth a lot of new features and improvements regarding SSH2 protocol handling, tab behavior, Quick Connect Dialog appearance and so on.
The final build, 263, appears to fix only one bug. Please see below for full release notes.
*** WHAT'S NEW IN SECURECRT 5.1 ***SecureCRT 5.1 (Official)
Bug fixes:- In some cases, escape sequences beginning with "ESC ]" were
incorrectly interpreted.
SecureCRT 5.1 (Beta 4)
Changes:- Added Global.ini option "Serialize Connections". If this
option is set, when multiple sessions are connected at the
same time, they are connected serially instead of in parallel.
- VCP/VSH: The command-line clients now display unsupported
host-key algorithms as they are received from the server.
Previously unsupported algorithms were displayed as blank
strings.
- VCP/VSH: Entering the wrong passphrase for an SSH1 RSA public
key no longer displays an "invalid structure" error. Users are
now prompted to enter a passphrase until they use the correct
one or cancel.
Bug fixes:- If a generic proxy was misconfigured, it caused SecureCRT to
hang, and disconnecting the session caused SecureCRT to crash.
- SecureCRT crashed when unsaving a password for a session and
password that had been specified on the command line.
- The tab status indicator changed to "connected" when connecting
to a host that did not exist if another tab that was connected
was selected before the connection attempt timed out.
- SSH2: When editing the default session, it was possible do a
password change.
- SSH2: Under certain circumstances, even though an X.509 host key
had been accepted and saved, SecureCRT asked about accepting it
during key re-exchange or when reconnecting.
SecureCRT 5.1 (Beta 3)
Changes:- The installation program no longer removes old versions of
SecureCRT from Windows Add/Remove Programs.
- For DNS addresses, SecureCRT uses the return list as is,
rather than preferring IPv4 addresses.
Bug fixes:- If SecureCRT and SecureFX were integrated, but were out of
sync, it was possible for the authentication method and key
exchange lists to be empty on the SSH2 page in the Session
Options dialog.
- After installing SecureCRT for the first time, upon starting,
the user was prompted to configure TAPI information and
SecureCRT crashed if the dialog was cancelled.
- Under certain circumstances, printing did not work after
upgrading from a version of SecureCRT prior to 5.0.
- If a log file name with parameter substitutions was specified
and "Prompt for filename" was set, the log file name was not
honored.
- In the Quick Connect dialog, changes made to the default
session were only reflected for the default protocol.
- The transfer protocol name was modified in the session .ini
file every time a connection attempt to that session was made.
- SSH1: Under certain circumstances, authentication failed when
connecting to an SSH1 server using Quick Connect.
- SSH1: Entering the wrong passphrase for an SSH1 RSA public key
resulted in an "invalid structure" error.
- SSH2: In the Local Port Forwarding Properties dialog, it was
not possible to use the same local port as another port forward
when the local IP address was different.
SecureCRT 5.1 (Beta 2)
New features:- Added history support to the chat window, allowing previous
commands to be viewed, edited, and sent.
- SSH2: Passwords for SSH2 sessions can be changed from the
Session Options dialog using the SSH2 protocol when it is
supported by the remote machine.
Changes:- Added a global-file-only option "Clipboard Data Format",
which allows the clipboard data format to be set to CF_TEXT,
CF_OEMTEXT, or CF_UNICODETEXT.
- When "FIPS mode" is enabled, invalid cryptographic algorithms
are not displayed in the Session Options dialog.
- When "FIPS Mode" is enabled, it is displayed in the About box.
- SSH2: Added default support for X.509 certificate server host
keys.
- SSH2: When a key exchange method is not supported, a message
is logged to the trace output.
- SSH1/SSH2: Authentication methods can be edited in the Session
Options dialog for SSH1 and SSH2 sessions that are connected.
Bug fixes:- When SecureCRT and SecureFX were integrated and the terminal
protocol for a session was set to SSH2 and the transfer
protocol was set to FTP, if the password was saved, it had to
be re-entered when switching between SecureCRT and SecureFX.
- Paste sometimes used Unicode, even though ASCII text was
selected.
- When multiple sessions were connected and the "Always on Top"
setting was changed, the setting did not always have the
correct value when a different session was active.
- After installing SecureCRT and running it for the first time,
if the evaluation dialog was quit, the next time SecureCRT
was run, it tried to migrate unnecessarily.
- SSH2: Pressing OK in the GSSAPI Properties dialog caused
SecureCRT to crash
- SSH2: SecureCRT did not honor the SFTP Tab Local directory
setting.
- SSH2: When "FIPS Mode" was enabled, the New Host Key dialog
did not display the server's fingerprint. It is now displayed
as a SHA-1 hash when "FIPS Mode" is enabled.
- SSH1: Under certain circumstances, SSH1 host keys could not
be saved.
SecureCRT 5.1 (Beta 1)
New features:- Enhanced support for X.509 certificate authentication.
- Previously, X.509 was supported through a CAPI store. Now,
X.509 certificates are also supported directly.
- SecureCRT supports forwarding X.509 certificates through the
public-key agent. This means that authentication happens
automatically when connecting to another machine using the same
X.509 certificate.
- SecureCRT now has an administrator option to run in "FIPS Mode".
When this option is set, SecureCRT uses a FIPS 140-2 validated
cryptographic library and only allows FIPS-approved algorithms.
- The Activator supports SSH agent functionality, which means that
if SecureCRT is closed, authentication happens automatically as
long as the Activator is still running.
- Folders and multiple selected sessions can be connected from the
Connect dialog.
- Global option to only show tabs where there are more than one.
- Custom menu/toolbar command OPEN_SESSION_TAB to open a session
in a tab.
- Support for ActiveX scripts written in Unicode or UTF-8.
- Script support for sending and waiting for Unicode strings.
- SecureCRT can run a script by interpreting the special escape
sequence "script <script>".
- Added a Logging property to the Session scripting object that
allows a script to determine if logging is enabled.
- Support for execute escape sequences in Wyse 50 emulation.
- SSH2: Added a session option not to request a shell upon
connection.
Changes:- View menu items such as Chat Window and Status Bar can now be
shown and hidden when a tab other than the first tab is active.
- Large pastes can be cancelled by typing CTRL+C.
- SecureCRT remembers the last log file that was specified in the
Select Log File dialog.
- If a tab is renamed, the new name is remembered until a different
session is opened in that tab or until SecureCRT is closed.
- Added a session option to ignore window title change requests that
are received from the remote system.
- Added a menu item to the Edit menu that allows focus to change
between the active session and the chat window. The keyboard
accelerator ALT+G can also be used. Also, CTRL+SHIFT+TAB can be
used in the chat window to switch to the active session.
- The text "
" is displayed in the chat window
when the "Send chat to all tabs" option is set.
- Added support for 8-bit characters in the title bar.
- The left margin can be as large as 1024 pixels wide.
- Hidden files and folders are not displayed in the Connect dialog.
- In addition to being able to put the script header at the top of
a script, the script engine can be read from the registry or can
be overridden using an NTFS alternate data stream to contain the
script header if the header would interfere with the script.
- Script file lines can now be terminated with a single line feed
(LF) in addition to carriage return line feed (CRLF).
- Added Global.ini option "Suppress Execute Escape Sequence Exit
Codes" that suppresses the "S" and "F" escape sequence return
codes.
- SSH2: Modified the SSH2 page in the Session Options dialog to
allow key exchange methods to be configured.
- VSH: Improved error message for the case where /NOPROMPT was
specified on the command line and a prompt was needed.
- VSFTP: "/" can be used to list the roots when connecting to a
server that allows multiple roots, such as VShell.
Bug fixes:
- When a tab was closed, the associated session's settings were
saved when "Auto Save Options" was not set.
- When multiple tabbed sessions were disconnected and automatically
reconnected, logging did not resume.
- ANSI color changes were not being used after the screen was
reset.
- SecureCRT failed to connect through a SOCKS version 5 proxy
without authentication because of a DNS failure.
- Running a script that did an Xmodem transfer caused SecureCRT to
hang.
- The title bar was not updated correctly when substitution
parameters were used.
- Multi-line tab titles caused the tab title to wrap.
- If the session option "Clear on Disconnect" was set when a session
was disconnected, the active tab was cleared, which was not always
the disconnected tab.
- Under certain circumstances involving tabbed sessions and
scrolling, it was possible to get in a state where opening a
remote file using "vi" displayed session scrollback rather than
the file being edited.
- Typing characters from languages such as Chinese or Japanese into
a session did not work correctly.
- Pasting UTF-8 characters into a session did not work correctly.
- The horizontal scrollbar was not the correct width when a session
had the "retain size and font" option set and the window was
resized to be smaller than the number of columns.
- If a shortcut key was set for a SecureCRT shortcut, the shortcut
key started SecureCRT, but it did not switch to SecureCRT.
- If a key was mapped to \v\r, the carriage return was incorrectly
sent as soon as 80 characters were pasted.
- In a dual monitor configuration, SecureCRT sometimes did not start
in the correct location when the specified position was a negative
value.
- Telnet: If a Telnet session to localhost was disconnected when
Microsoft IIS server was running, it caused the explorer window
manager to exit.
- Serial: SecureCRT crashed when connecting to the same serial
port using a session that had the "Auto reconnect" option enabled.
- SSH1: SecureCRT crashed when generating an SSH1 RSA key that was
larger than 1800 bits.
- SSH1/SSH2: Switching protocols from SSH1 to SSH2 caused an
extra X11 page to be displayed in the Session Options dialog.
- SSH2: SecureCRT crashed if an SFTP session was exited and the
session option "Close on disconnect" was set.
- SSH2: SecureCRT crashed when login failed and a remote port
forward needed to do a hostname lookup.
- SSH2: SecureCRT crashed when attempting to upload a newly
generated public key using the Public Key Assistant if the
session was not connected.
- SSH2: After issuing an "exit" command in an SFTP tab, the tab
could not be closed using CTRL+F4.
- SSH2: On the SSH2 page in the Session Options dialog, if no key
exchange method was selected, the dialog informing that at least
one key exchange method must be selected was displayed twice.
- SSH2: Some Kerberos key exchange methods were listed twice in the
key-exchange methods list.
- SSH2: If a password was typed before the password prompt appeared,
it was displayed in the session window after the session was
connected.
- SSH2: After connecting to OpenSSH running on a Cyclades TS2000
console server, the session could not be disconnected.
- VSFTP: No error message was displayed if the remote side
disconnected.
- VSH: VSH hung if a pipe was full and VSH sent more data to that
pipe.
- VSH: The Current User's profile was not being used to load and
save host key information.
*** RELEVANT LINKS ***
VanDyke Homepage
Download SecureCRT 5.1 Final (.exe - 8.91MB)
SecureCRT Product Page
General What's New page for VanDyke productsLabels: securecrt, security, ssh
Following the latest trend, Vandyke Software started updating their applications to comply with the Windows Vista guidelines. First is SecureCRT, the renowned SSH/Telnet client, with the 5.5 Beta 1 version released on the 8th of February.
Among the SSH protocol related changes and fixes, one stands out most: zlib@openssh is now supported, which prevents the zlib library from caching unencrypted passwords by enabling compression compression only after the authentication sequence.
