This is Kermit 95, the Windows and OS/2 port of C-Kermit from the Kermit Project. Kermit 95 was formerly a commercial product of Columbia University from 1994 to 2011 (versions up to 2.1.3) and since 2013 has been developed under the 3-clause BSD license. For more information on Kermit, visit the Kermit Project website: http://www.kermitproject.org, or see the Kermit 95 3.0 Beta website.
Major features include:
- More than 40 terminal emulations - not just VT100 or "xterm"!
- Support for SSH, Serial port, named pipe, PTY, modem (TAPI or direct), Telnet (TLS, Kerberos, DES/CAST encryption, X11 forwarding and RFC2217), and rlogin. Additionally, LAT and CTERM are supported if you've got Pathworks installed, and NetBIOS is supported on OS/2.
- Runs on nearly all 32bit and 64bit Windows releases regardless of CPU architecture (SSH and secure telnet/ftp/http require Windows XP or newer).
- Scriptable file transfer via Kermit, X/Y/Z Modem, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS protocols
- Same command/script language as C-Kermit on Linux/UNIX/MacOS, and very similar to Kermit implementations on MS-DOS and various other platforms
- REXX scripting on OS/2 and x86/x86-64 Windows XP or newer
A Feature Comparison with some other terminal emulators/SSH clients is available on the Wiki.
While Kermit 95 v3.0 is still in beta, its already more usable (and free!) than the old commercial v2.1.3 release; it brings a modern fully up-to-date SSH implementation, fixes a large number of bugs and security issues, includes proper support for the latest versions of Windows (including 64bit and ARM support!), and a large selection of new features and enhancements. For a full list of all that's new, see What's New in K95 v3.0.
For a list of what's changed between the Kermit 95 3.0 beta releases, or past stable releases of Kermit 95, see The Change Log
This software is currently based on C-Kermit version 10.0 Beta.11 of 29-JUN-2024
From 2013 until August 2024 this project was developed under the name C-Kermit for Windows but the decision has been made to switch back to the original name, Kermit 95, starting with beta 7 to reduce confusion (plus it's a shorter name and works better on OS/2). While the name may have changed, it's still the same program
Kermit 95 supports virtually all 32bit and 64bit releases of Microsoft Windows on all CPU architectures. The only remaining exception is Windows NT 3.10 (though even that may work for making serial connections). However, due to lack of hardware Itanium and ARM64 are not actively tested so reports of what works and what doesn't over on Github Discussions would be appreciated. Any bugs that only affect these platforms are unlikely to be fixed unless they're reported.
Because of all the different CPU architectures and generations of Microsoft Windows supported its not possible to support everything with a single download. As a result, current releases include 13 download options!
- Windows XP SP3 or newer on x86, x86-64, ARM32 or ARM64
- Windows on Itanium
- Windows NT 3.51/4.0/2000, Windows 95/98/ME on x86
- Windows NT 3.51/4.0/2000 on Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC and Alpha64
- Windows NT 3.50 on x86, Alpha and MIPS
As the supported Windows versions get older (or the CPUs more obscure), certain features become unavailable:
| Feature | Minimum Windows Version | Description / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| PTY | Windows 10 version 1809 | Windows cmd/powershell/WSL using the K95 terminal emulator |
| SSH Client | Windows XP SP 3 | Earlier Windows releases will require writing an alternative SSH module based on some other SSH implementation |
| SSL/TLS | Windows XP SP 3 | This includes https, ftps and secure telnet support |
| REXX Scripting | Windows XP SP 3 on x86 or x86-64 | It is hoped REXX support will be extended to builds for other Windows versions eventually. |
| TAPI | Windows 95 or NT 4.0 | Modem dialing via set modem should still work on earlier versions of windows |
| Toolbar | Windows NT 3.51 | Some GUI dialogs also require at least NT 3.51 |
| Dialer | Windows NT 3.51 | Not available on NT 3.50 currently |
| GUI | Windows NT 3.50 (x86), NT 3.51 (alpha/mips) | The GUI version (k95g.exe) is not currently available on the Alpha and MIPS versions of NT 3.50. |
Kermit 95 v3.0 beta 7 sees the return of 32bit OS/2 support! This replaces the free OS/2 C-Kermit 5A(191) release of April 1995 and mostly replaces the commercial Kermit 95 2.1.2 release of November 2002 as well.
It should work on IBM OS/2 2.0 or newer with IBM TCP/IP 2.0 or newer, or IBM Internet Connection (dialup). If a compatible TCP/IP stack can't be found, the Telnet, FTP and HTTP clients become unavailable but everything else is still available for, eg, making serial connections.
As with past Kermit 95 releases, the OS/2 version does not include an SSH client or a GUI/Presentation Manager variant (like K95G.EXE on Windows). It only exists as an OS/2 Console (VIO) application. Now that its open source, if there is sufficient demand it may be possible to add these someday.
Current releases don't currently include the PM connection manager (dialer), SSL/TLS support, legacy telnet crypto (DES/CAST), or support for FTP Software PC/TCP 1.2 and IBM TCP/IP 1.2.1. Where possible these features may return in future releases. For more information, see issue #8.
OS/2 is supported on a best-efforts basis due to a lack of OS/2 development experience. If you use Kermit 95 on OS/2 (successfully or otherwise) please let us know! Bug reports are important, as is knowing people are actually using it and what its being used for.
The return of OS/2 support in Kermit 95 was made possible thanks to the help of Michal Necasek who found fixes for all the issues that popped up in the switch from IBM C/C++ 3.6 to Open Watcom 1.9.
Github Discussions provides a public forum for general discussion about or support for Kermit 95. Feel free to join in there if you have any questions or want to talk about what you use Kermit 95 for.
Limited email support is also available. If you'd rather not ask your question in public or can't access Github Discussions, you can email [email protected] - this will reach David Goodwin and Frank da Cruz who may be able to help. Support is on a best efforts basis of course - Kermit 95 is no ones day job anymore!
Kermit 95 also includes a full Users Guide
which has been (mostly) revised for version 3.0. If you've got Kermit 95 in front
of you, you can bring it up by either choosing Manual from the Help menu, or
typing manual at the K-95 prompt.
There is also a Kermit 95 How-To which may be useful for new users. And for topics not covered by the Kermit 95 Users Guide, there is the C-Kermit Documentation which covers Kermit 95s command language as well.
If you're upgrading from Kermit 95 2.1.3 or earlier and use the SSH client, you may want to check the SSH Client Reference section of the users guide for details on what's changed, or consult the SSH Readme for a quick summary.
Kermit 95s terminal emulator supports the ADM-3A and ADM-5; ANSI-BBS; Avatar/0+; AT386; BeBox ANSI; Data General DASHER D200, D210; Data General DASHER D217 in native and Unix modes; DEC VT52; DEC VT100, VT102, VT220, VT320 with color extensions; Hazeltine 1500; Heath/Zenith 19; Hewlett Packard 2621A; HPTERM; IBM HFT and AIXTERM; IBM 3151; Linux console; Microsoft VTNT; QNX ANSI and QNX Console; SCOANSI; Siemens Nixdorf BA80 and 97801-5xx; Sun Console; Televideo TVI910+, TVI925, TVI950; Volker Craig VC404; Wyse 30, 50, 60, 160, and 370
For more details on what features the various emulations support, see The Manual.
Mouse reporting via the X10, X11/normal, URXVT and SGR protocols is also
supported and can be configured via the set mouse reporting command.
You can pick a terminal emulation with either the set term type command, or
the drop-down list in the toolbar.
While Kermit 95 supports a reasonable subset of what other terminal emulators such as xterm or PuTTY can do, Kermit 95 does not provide an "xterm" emulation option (and you could argue that many other terminal emulators don't really either). Instead, it is hoped that eventually a proper terminfo entry can be written for it to properly expose the features it supports without also exposing features it doesn't (help would be appreciated here!)
In the meantime, for connecting to modern linux hosts you'll generally get the best feature set (colour, mouse reporting, etc) by using the linux console emulation with the utf-8 character set, though with some limitations imposed by what the linux console itself supports:
set term type linux
set term remote utf8
To build Kermit 95, see the Build Instructions. Visual C++ 2019 or newer is strongly recommended, but any released 32bit or 64bit version should work (with certain features automatically excluded on older compilers).
There is also limited support for compiling with Open Watcom 1.9+ and MinGW. For Open Watcom, just follow the normal build instructions above. For cross-compiling from Linux, see the MinGW Build Instructions.
To build Kermit 95 for OS/2 (Kermit/2) using Open Watcom, see the OS/2 Build Instructions.
For a list of supported compilers and which features they do or don't get, see Compiler Support
Kermit 95 v3.0 is based on what was going to be Kermit 95 v2.2 which was never released publicly. The code was partially open-sourced in 2011 with further bits open-sourced or rewritten in the decade since.
For full details on what's changed since the last public release of Kermit 95, v2.1.3 of 21 January 2003, see the Change Log.