SecureCRT: CLI Has Never Been Easier

Network engineers and administrators who spend considerable time on network devices need a reliable Telnet/SSH/Serial client. The best free option they have is Putty, sure. But when you have hundreds of devices and different credentials to store, then a more advanced tool is needed.

This is where SercureCRT comes in place. It has beautiful features that make network administration easy and “colorful”. It is a software made by VanDyke and has nice features.

Features

SecureCRT provides the following features:

  • Creating and storing sessions: you can create hundreds of sessions and save them for future use. SecureCRT includes a powerful feature that allows to store usernames and passwords along with the sessions.
  • Customizing the GUI: if you don’t like the default font, or the background or even want to have a transparent background, then SecureCRT allows you to customize all that.  You can check my console colors on this post.
  • Tab support: in a single instance of this software, you can run tens of sessions in the form of tabs.

Shortcut commands

Here is a list of my favourite SecureCRT shortcuts:

  • ALT+B: launches the “new session” menu
  • ALT+T (while in an active session): starts text capture
  • ALT+R (while in an active session): stops text capture

Conclusion

I have been using SecureCRT on my office computer since 2010 as my primary remote CLI tool. Whenever I use a different computer, I only use Putty. But, again, if I have to choose, I will definitely pick SecureCRT.

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