MidpSSH | SSH and Telnet client for Mobile Devices

The Settings are accessed in the Settings menu off the Main Menu. Some of the settings affect the way MidpSSH looks while others affect the operation of MidpSSH. It may be necessary to change the settings in order to get MidpSSH working on your device.

The network settings control the network operation of MidpSSH.

• The Terminal type to report to the remote server. MidpSSH contains an implementation of the VT320 terminal, and this is the default terminal type (when the terminal type field is empty). If you have terminal compatibility problems perhaps try vt100 or xterm as your terminal type. I usually use the “linux” terminal type, this is the best choice in my case connecting to Linux ssh server (edited by Comrad). If you have redraw problems with screen + irssi combination, try ansi.
• Polling I/O determines whether MidpSSH polls the connection for more data ready to be read (Polling I/O on), or whether it blocks and waits to be notified when there is data available (Polling I/O off). Polling is required on some devices as the blocking I/O mode results in a deadlock situation. Polling I/O off is the default. The following devices may require Polling I/O on:
  • Please add your device to this list if you know that it requires Polling I/O
  • Motorola v600 (added by Comrad)
  • Motorola V3 Razr (added by Milan Dobes)
  • Nokia 6800 (Also increased LoginGraceTime) (added by nontrivial)
  • HP IPAQ 500 series (Windows mobile 6 + JBlend) (added by tumik)
  • LG KU990 (added by Christof)
  • Motorola Z3 RIZR (added by Maximiliano Alonzo)

sony ericsson

The interface settings control how MidpSSH appears on your device (except for Fonts which have their own menu).

• In Full Screen mode the entire screen (almost) can be used to display the terminal, or just the usual screen area. This is only available on MIDP 2 devices.
• Orientation; the screen can be rotated to suit devices that you might want to use on their side rather than straight up and down. This is only available on MIDP 2 devices.
• Terminal Size in columns and rows; this is the virtual size of the terminal. The default is usually best; that is to use all available screen space and work out the columns and rows based on the dimensions of the font. If you set a size here that is larger than can be displayed on your device you will need to use the scrolling function while connected.
• Predictive Text entry is available on many mobile devices. If it is turned on here it is used in various text boxes throughout MidpSSH. This is only available on MIDP 2 devices. (On MIDP 1 devices you may still be able to use predictive text, depending upon your device, but you cannot control it here.)

MidpSSH includes a few different font options depending upon the build and your MIDP version. In the lite build the font settings are not available, and the Tiny font is used. In MIDP 1 builds only the Tiny and Device font options are available.

• The Tiny font is a 4×6 pixel font designed by Radek Polak for mobile devices. It is simple and OK to read, but may be too small on some devices.
• The Device font uses your device’s built-in monospaced font. It uses the “small” size of this font, but the actual size that text appears is variable. It is usually quite large in comparison to the Tiny font, which makes it less useful.

On MIDP 2 devices there are additional font options provided by Roar Lauritzsen. These fonts exploit the spatial separation of the RGB components within one pixel (similar to Microsoft’s ClearType). They double the horizontal resolution of the font by treating the G component as one pixel, and the R+B components combined as another. Basically they are more readable but still very small.

The following sizes are available:

• 3×6 pixels
• 4×6 pixels
• 4×7 pixels
• 5×9 pixels

The best way to find the font that suits you is to try them all. Make sure you try the 3×6 pixel font as well!

Some devices may have a BGR subpixel ordering rather than RGB, so there is a setting for that here too. The default is the more common RGB. Try switching to BGR if the font looks fuzzy. There's a list of known device types.

When the screen orientation is changed and an LCD font is selected, the only size available is 4×7, due to the physical nature of the screens.

You can also change the Foreground and Background colours of the screen. MidpSSH has ANSI colour support so the colours may be changed by the remote server.

Colours are entered as 6 digit hexadecimal, for example:

• ffffff is white
• 000000 is black
• and in December you might like to try the unreadable, ff0000 and 00ff00 combination.

The SSH settings configure the way the SSH implementation behaves.

• MidpSSH can be configured to prefer either SSH 1 or SSH 2. While SSH 2 is more secure it is generally slower than SSH 1 to use on mobile devices. If MidpSSH determines that there is a choice when connecting, this setting will decide which protocol is used.

• Public Key authentication can be used to authenticate with remote SSH 2 servers, rather than using password authentication. Read more about public key authentication.

• During the SSH 2 connection a connection-specific public/private key pair is generated (the session key), in order to encrypt the session. This is not the same as the public key used in authentication (above). Because some mobile devices are slow this can be calculated once and stored on the device for reuse. (Perhaps this is not the safest option but it can drastically reduce the time it takes to connect.)
• There is currently no facility for a private key passphrase. If you wish to protect your server should your mobile device be lost, here are your options:
  • Ensure that you passphrase protect your mobile device
  • Only allow your mobile private key to access unprivileged accounts
  • Consider forcing a secondary authentication when access is via your mobile private key. For example, by using a forced command (command=”foo”) in the authorized_keys file for this specific ssh key, or by setting environment (environment=”foo=bar”) in the authorized_keys file for this specific key and then having the login script detect this and enforce such secondary auth.

• The session key‘s size can also be configured to compromise between speed and security. The recommended key size is 512 bytes for security, but you can try dropping it down as low as 32 bytes or 64 bytes fi you get really slow connection times.