Kermit 95 (C-Kermit for Windows and OS/2)

Kermit 95 is a free scriptable terminal emulator and file transfer utility for nearly all 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows, as well as 32-bit IBM OS/2.

Kermit 95 is the Windows and OS/2 port of C-Kermit from the Kermit Project and was formerly a commercial product of Columbia University from 1994 until 2011 (versions up to 2.1.3). Since 2013 it 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.

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 (January 2025) 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.

Highlights

• Dozens of terminal emulation options
• Full keyboard remapping
• Connect via SSH†, Serial, Modem (TAPI or Direct), Named Pipe, Telnet, Secure Telnet (TLS, Kerberos)†, rlogin, and PTY. Additionally, NetBIOS is supported on OS/2
• LAT and CTERM supported with DEC/Compaq/HP Pathworks32
• RFC2217 Serial-over-telnet support
• Supports Windows natively on x86, x86-64, ARM32, ARM64, Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC, and Itanium CPUs
• Runs as a native multithreaded 32-bit OS/2 application
• Full-featured Kermit protocol implementation including server mode and IKSD (based on C-Kermit)
• Built-in X/Y/Z-MODEM support
• Scriptable FTP(s)† and HTTP(s)† clients
• Scriptable via its own scripting language (shared with C-Kermit) and REXX‡
• Can listen for incoming telnet or modem connections for file transfer and scripting (eg, the included Host Mode scripts)
• Optional menubar, toolbar and statusbar

† Secure communication methods (SSH, Telnet-ssl, ftps, https, Kerberos) require Windows XP SP3 or newer.

‡ REXX scripting currently requires Windows XP SP3 or newer and an x86 or x86-64 CPU, or IBM OS/2. The next release will include REXX support on more Windows releases and CPU architectures.

A Feature Comparison with some other terminal emulators/SSH clients is available on the Wiki.

Documentation

Kermit 95 comes with a full users guide - just type manual at the K-95 prompt, or choose the Manual option from the Help menu.

For convenience, three versions of the users guide are also available online:

• Kermit 95 v3.0 - current release (v3.0.0 beta 7 currently)
• latest development build - may discuss features and details not yet available in the current version
• Kermit 95 v2.1.3 - the last commercial release from January 2003

The Kermit 95 users guide primarily covers details unique to Kermit 95 such as its terminal emulator and SSH client. For information on its command interface, telnet client and other aspects it shares with C-Kermit, see The C-Kermit Documentation

For information on the control sequences supported by Kermit 95, see the draft Kermit 95 Control Sequences document. Note that this document covers the next release of K95, not the current one! If you need to know what control sequences are supported in beta 7, you can find a copy of this file in your DOCS folder.

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.

Getting Help

If you run into any trouble with Kermit 95 or need help with something, you can ask a question on GitHub Discussions. If you don't have a GitHub account, or would rather not ask a question in public space, you can also email ckw@kermitproject.org.

There is also a Kermit 95 How-To which may be useful for new users. The Kermit 95 FAQ, while not updated for v3.0, still contains some relevant information too.

If you think you may have found a bug, you can check the K95 Bugs List or the Issue Tracker on GitHub to see if your bug is described anywhere. If it isn't, feel free to log it on the issue tracker or if you're not sure get in touch via one of the above methods. Bugs that aren't reported aren't likely to get fixed anytime soon!

Nature of the Current Release

While recent Kermit 95 releases have carried the "beta" label, they have in practice been stable feature releases. They continue to carry the beta label only because:

• C-Kermit v10.0, on which Kermit 95 is based, is still in beta (though the last few beta releases have only been addressing Unix/Linux/OpenVMS portability concerns).
• Kermit 95 v3.0 is not yet at feature parity with 2.1.3, though it isn't far off now and the remaining missing features are becoming increasingly esoteric.
• There are a few terminal emulation features that have become common over the last 20 years which Kermit 95 v3.0 should probably support (24bit color, alternate screen buffer, and left/right margins to name a few).

Because the last "stable" release was in 2003 and isn't freely available (or particularly usable in 2025 due to changing encryption algorithms), Kermit 95 is currently in a kind of perpetual beta development stage. If the latest release meets you needs it isn't worth waiting for the beta tag to disappear - the latest beta releases are already more stable last stable commercial release, and the beta tag may still be around for another year or three depending on how much free time the projects single developer has.

The Dialer

The "Dialer" as included in Kermit 95 2.1.3 and earlier is still included with Kermit 95 v3.0 where possible, but it should now be considered a deprecated feature on Windows. It's not going to go away, but its also not going to get much in the way of enhancements or new features. It's there if you need it, but you're better off writing scripts or macros to save connection details (see the K95 How-To for an example macro).

The dialer is trapped in the 90s by the frameworks it was built with, so it is not possible to build it for x86-64, Itanium, ARM32 or ARM64. As a result it's not included with the Itanium, ARM32 or ARM64 versions of Kermit 95.

A new replacement will be developed eventually (it is in fact already more than half built), but this likely won't appear until some release after K95 v3.0. When it does appear, the dialer will likely receive one final upgrade to support exporting its connections to a format its replacement can understand.

The new dialer replacement will be Windows only, so the existing Dialer will stick around for OS/2 (it works fine there, or would if it could be compiled with Open Watcom) and the Windows version will continue to be made available for anyone who wants/needs it.

Kermit 95 for Windows Specifics

There are many different varieties of Kermit 95 for Windows, and they aren't all the same! Different compilers support targeting different versions of Windows, and all the 3rd party libraries Kermit 95 depends on to provide some of its features require a minimum compiler version higher than what Kermit 95 itself requires.

So as the Windows releases get older, Kermit 95 has to lose a few features in order to be able to run at all.

| 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 S