Thoughts Found Inside My Head

As part of my work, I regularly have to SSH into old AIX boxes. PuTTY works fine for this, but I really don’t like the fonts and the way the old interface saves and loads profiles.
Here’s the combination I’ve found works best for me:

• Windows Terminal
• micro
• sshs (used with a config file in C:\Users\\.ssh)

The problem? Windows Terminal sets the TERM variable equal to TERM=xterm-256color. This is generally fine for all of the Linux servers I admin, but it means that all of my vi sessions in AIX don’t load properly – the file opened in vi has be viewed one… line… at… a… time… by pressing Enter… infuriating!
This issue can be addressed by setting the TERM variable to vt100 on the server:

• SSH to the server: ssh
• Open your .profile: vi ~/.profile
• Add the following line: export TERM=vt100
• Save and close: :wq
• Exit the SSH session: exit
• SSH to the server again: ssh

Helpful Reading:

• Setting a Terminal Type, courtesy of Indiana University
• Stupid Korn Shell Tricks