Putty, SSH, Arrow Keys Produce Character String

[newOperator]

Hi all.

Debian Distribution: Squeeze
Putty: 0.62

Problem: When arrow keys or tab pressed, the following character strings disply on screen instead of the cursor moving left or right, or up or down. NB: This only happens when I am not logged in as root. When I do this, everything acts as expected.

Expectation:
Up: previous in command history
Down: next in command history
Left: move cursor left
Right: move curos right
Tab: tab completion

What happens:
Up: ^[[A
Down: ^[[B
Left: ^[[D
Right: ^[[C
Tab: <tab>

Steps Taken, knowledge gained:
Found an article on startup files of Readline (forum rules prevent me from posting a link to the article. I can PM anyone who is interested.)

Tried: Adding following line to /etc/inputrc and ./usr/share/doc/bash/inputrc.arrows and restarting:

"^[[C" backward-char

Tried: search -name inputrc* which yielded following files:

./etc/inputrc
./usr/share/doc/libreadline6/inputrc.arrows
./usr/share/doc/libereadline5/inputrc.arrows
./usr/share/doc/bash/inputrc.arrows
./usr/share/doc/readline-common/inputrc.arrows
./usr/share/readline/inputrc


./etc/inputrc

# /etc/inputrc - global inputrc for libreadline
  2 # See readline(3readline) and `info rluserman' for more information.
  3
  4 # Be 8 bit clean.
  5 set input-meta on
  6 set output-meta on
  7
  8 # To allow the use of 8bit-characters like the german umlauts, comment out
  9 # the line below. However this makes the meta key not work as a meta key,
 10 # which is annoying to those which don't need to type in 8-bit characters.
 11
 12 # set convert-meta off
 13
 14 # try to enable the application keypad when it is called.  Some systems
 15 # need this to enable the arrow keys.
 16 # set enable-keypad on
 17
 18 # see /usr/share/doc/bash/inputrc.arrows for other codes of arrow keys
 19
 20 # do not bell on tab-completion
 21 # set bell-style none
 22 # set bell-style visible
 23
 24 # some defaults / modifications for the emacs mode
 25 $if mode=emacs
 26
 27 # allow the use of the Home/End keys
 28 "\e[1~": beginning-of-line
 29 "\e[4~": end-of-line
 30
 31 # allow the use of the Delete/Insert keys
 32 "\e[3~": delete-char
 33 "\e[2~": quoted-insert
 34
 35 # mappings for "page up" and "page down" to step to the beginning/end
 36 # of the history
 37 # "\e[5~": beginning-of-history
 38 # "\e[6~": end-of-history
 39
 40 # alternate mappings for "page up" and "page down" to search the history
 41 # "\e[5~": history-search-backward
 42 # "\e[6~": history-search-forward
 43
 44 # mappings for Ctrl-left-arrow and Ctrl-right-arrow for word moving
 45 "\e[1;5C": forward-word
46 "\e[1;5D": backward-word
 47 "\e[5C": forward-word
 48 "\e[5D": backward-word
 49 "\e\e[C": forward-word
 50 "\e\e[D": backward-word
 51
 52 $if term=rxvt
 53 "\e[8~": end-of-line
 54 "\eOc": forward-word
 55 "\eOd": backward-word
 56 $endif
 57
 58 # for non RH/Debian xterm, can't hurt for RH/Debian xterm
 59 # "\eOH": beginning-of-line
 60 # "\eOF": end-of-line
 61
 62 # for freebsd console
 63 # "\e[H": beginning-of-line
 64 # "\e[F": end-of-line
 65
 66 $endif

./usr/share/doc/bash/inputrc.arrows

  1 # This file controls the behaviour of line input editing for
  2 # programs that use the Gnu Readline library.
  3 #
  4 # Arrow keys in keypad mode
  5 #
  6 "\C-[OD"        backward-char
  7 "\C-[OC"        forward-char
  8 "\C-[OA"        previous-history
  9 "\C-[OB"        next-history
 10 #
 11 # Arrow keys in ANSI mode
 12 #
 13 "\C-[[D"        backward-char
 14 "\C-[[C"        forward-char
 15 "\C-[[A"        previous-history
 16 "\C-[[B"        next-history
 17 #
 18 # Arrow keys in 8 bit keypad mode
 19 #
 20 "\C-M-OD"       backward-char
 21 "\C-M-OC"       forward-char
 22 "\C-M-OA"       previous-history
 23 "\C-M-OB"       next-history
 24 #
 25 # Arrow keys in 8 bit ANSI mode
 26 #
 27 "\C-M-[D"       backward-char
 28 "\C-M-[C"       forward-char
 29 "\C-M-[A"       previous-history
 30 "\C-M-[B"       next-history
 31
 32 "\C-^[[D"         backward-char

I diff'ed all the inputrc and inputrc.arrows - they're all identical to ./etc/inputrc and ./usr/share/doc/bash/inputrc.arrows So it's not a case of editting the wrong file.

I'm out of ideas on how to proceed from here. I would really appreciate any help anyone can offer.

Thanks.

[alf55]

Why are you using PUTTY from a Unix/Linux box? Just use "ssh" and/or "scp" from within a terminal window.

[newOperator]

My apologies. I wasn't clear: I'm using ssh to access a Debain box from a PC running Windows 7.

[newOperator]

SOLVED.

Found an article that gives instructions on how to change the default shell for a given user. I used the following:

chsh -s /bin/bash user-name

Man chsh for any further details.