back space

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

Hi,
users connecting by PUTTY to AIX unix server can not do back space. What should we do ? What should be added to .bash_profile ?

Thank you.

2

There is a long standing conspiracy to map the backspace and delete keys to send something different than what God intended (i.e. bytes 10 and 127). You need to figure out what putty is sending and what AIX is expecting and have these to match.

3

usually on AIX erase = ^? (whereas HP-UX = ^H ...)
look at the manpages of stty

4

One technique.

Login to an interactive shell and note the current key mapping.
stty -a

Change the setting for the erase key to however the key is mapped.
stty erase <press the backspace key>

Look to see what it became:
stty -a

Check carefully that you do not have two keys with the same mapping.

Add the stty line to the user's profile.
If for example the backspace key mapped to "^H"
stty erase "^H"