C-Kermit

Welcome to C-Kermit! C-Kermit is a project of Open Kermit, the home of continuing development of C-Kermit.

C-Kermit is a communications package. It has a text UI, a portable scripting language (similar in concept to the shell, but with built-in screen-scraping automation like expect and built-in file transfer), an implementation of the Kermit file transfer protocol protocol, network client and server, serial port interface, BBS client, and more. Kermit runs on hundreds of platforms, from the long-dead computers of the 1970s, pocket calculators of the 1990s, and modern desktop and mobile OSs.

I need to emphasize here the difference between the Kermit protocol and the C-Kermit software. The protocol is primarily used for transferring files, but also in the more sophisticated implementations such as C-Kermit, can be used to perform actions on the remote such as renaming files, creating directories, and so forth. C-Kermit is an implementation of the protocol, but also adds a lot of other features, such as a scripting language and X/Y/ZModem support.

The C-Kermit of today is a direct continuation of the original C-Kermit released in 1985.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are reading this page on Github, the canonical place to view it instead is https://www.openkermit.org/ckermit/. That integrates with the rest of the Kermit Project website.

Begin with downloads and then documentation on how to get started.

Here you can find specific C-Kermit information:

• Introduction to C-Kermit, including a tour
• C-Kermit as an ssh wrapper shows how C-Kermit makes ssh a lot more useful. And it is another good way of learning about Kermit, even if you aren’t going to use it as a ssh wrapper.
• The current changelog, 2022-present
• The old changelog, which itself is a copy of http://kermitproject.org/ckupdates.html
• A recent generated reference document
• Platform-specific notes for your specific operating system
• Current manpage (reference) as a PDF
• Notes on using C-Kermit:
  • IPv6
  • Calling BBSs
  • On very high-latency links
  • C-Kermit Scripting
  • Local/Remote mode, ENABLE/DISABLE, and RECEIVE PATHNAMES
  • Filenames with spaces, wildcards, and escaping
  • Use with KVM vsock for communicating to VMs
• Information for C-Kermit Developers

For more information, see the wider Open Kermit project. Take particular note of these pages there:

• Kermit documentation
• FAQ