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-
- | T e l n e t E x p l a i n e d |
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-
- Mar 24 1999
- Written by [warlock]
- Legion of Magic
- ----------
-
- This text is for informational and educational purposes only.
-
- Introduction:
- -------------
-
- This text was designed to help non technically-oriented users understand telnet clients
- and how they work. From day to day I am asked 'How do I use telnet?????' by lamers who
- cannot be bothered to RTFM/help file/readme.
-
- Tools:
- ------
-
- It is recomended you read all of this text before using telnet
- It is also recommended that you read this in Netscape Navigator(better text layout)
- 1. Brain or other reasonably fast logical thought/deduction and information storage device
- 2. Telnet client
- - Ewan (highly recommended)
- or - Telnet (Convenient because it comes with windows, lacks features though)
-
- I will describe the Windows telnet client, then Ewan.
-
- What is telnet?
- ---------------
-
- A terminal emulation program (telnet emulates crusty old puters, like the Digital VT-100 and
- VT-102, for example) for TCP/IP networks such as the Internet. The Telnet client runs on your
- computer and connects your PC to a server on the network. You can then enter commands through
- the Telnet program and they will be executed as if you were entering them directly on the server
- console. This enables you to control the server and communicate with other servers on
- the network. To start a telnet session, you must connect to a server on an open port and (usually) enter a login and password.
-
- How to use windows telnet:
- --------------------------
-
- The windows telnet client can be found in the windows directory
- (don't confuse this with HyperTerminal)
- Open it and once loaded you will now be staring at a blank window.
- (if the interface looks boring enough to make you want to quit, then remember that before the
- days of graphical client programs like email/news clients, web browsers etc etc, telnet was the
- only window into the internet.)
- Now, click on 'Connect' in the menu bar, then 'Remote System'
- You will then be presented with a dialog box that looks like this:
- _____________________________
- |Connect ________________ |
- |Hostname :|________________| |
- |Port :|________________| |
- |Term type:|________________| |
- | ___________ __________ |
- || | | ||
- || Connect | | Cancel ||
- ||___________| |__________||
- |_____________________________|
-
- A good place for your first telnet connection is your shell account. A shell account is
- basically a Unix terminal. If you have a shell account (or just 'shell') then you can run
- apps on the shell and other kewl stuff. To find out if you have a shell account and its URL,
- check out your ISP's webpage or email the system administrator.
- Or, you can try telnetting to an FTP server. Any ISP worth their salt should have an FTP server.
- This is the telnet equivalent of using an FTP client or web browser to browse an FTP archive.
- In the 'Connect' field, type
- ftp.foobarisp.com
- (substitute your ISP's domain for 'foobarisp.com'. If my ISP's website was at www.abc.com,
- my domain would be abc.com, i.e. my ISP's web URL, but without the 'www.'
- In the 'Port' dialog, type the number 21. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is bound to port 21.
- Now click connect.
- Once connected, you will presented with a screen like this:
- _______________________________________
- |_Telnet________________________________|
- |_Connect_Edit_Terminal_Help____________|
- |220 proFTPD |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- | |
- |_______________________________________|
-
- You will see a prompt like the one above. This prompt indicates the daemon (and often version.)
- A daemon (pronounced 'demon') is a program that runs on a remote computer and manages a
- particular service, i.e. the FTP daemon controls connections to the FTP port and generally
- manages the FTP side of things. The mail daemon, like 'sendmail' for instance, manages things
- when you send an email and so forth.
- Ok, so at the prompt, type:
-
- user anonymous
-
- (but, if it already has a prompt saying something like 'Username' or 'Login', drop the 'user' and
- type just anonymous, without the 'user' bit.)
-
- After it says "guest login accepted yada yada", type:
- pass myemailaddress@foobarisp.com
-
- (once again, if it comes up with a 'Password:' prompt, drop the 'pass' bit and enter only your
- email address.)
-
- It will then display some more trivia. Now you've logged in, type:
-
- help
-
- This will display all the different commands the FTP server understands. Play around with
- some commands.
-
- Once you've finished playing around with port 21, try a few different ports, like
- the ones listed below. Your ISP may not offer all of these services, but have a go and use some
- common sense (i.e. i wouldn't try to connect to port 21 on my mail server, nor would I try to
- connect to port 25 on my FTP server.)
-
- Also, try telnetting to some puters outside of your ISP, like some anonymous FTP sites.
-
- Service Port
- ------ ----
- FTP - 21 (explained in detail already)
- telnet - 23 (the default telnet port. This is used for system admin.)
- Mail - 25 (this port is for sendmail, the unix mail-sending daemon)
- time - 37 (the mind boggles at what this could possibly be)
- Finger - 79 (used for 'fingering' email accounts, which gives you info on people who
- have email accounts on that puter)
- HTTP - 80 (the mind boggles)
- POP3 - 110 (the port in charge of the daemon to receive mail.
- Contrast this with 25, the port for the sending-mail daemon.
- Don't confuse the two.)
- News - 119 (the port in charge of the news daemon. If you don't know what
- newsgroups are then I really don't know why you're reading
- this text)
-
- Now you have some ports to connect to, I'll move on to Ewan.
- Open Ewan and you will presented with a box that looks like this:
- _______________________________________________
- |_Connect to Site_______________________________|
- | ______________________________ ________ |
- || | |__ok ___| |
- || | ________ |
- || | |_cancel_| |
- || | |
- || | ________ |
- || | |__New___| |
- || | |_Delete_| |
- || | |__Edit__| |
- || | |
- || | ________ |
- ||______________________________| |__Help__| |
- | () Private site list |
- | () Shared site list |
- |_______________________________________________|
-
- Click 'New' and you will be presented with this dialog:
- ________________________________________
- |_Address________________________________|
- | Name_____________________ | _______ |
- | |_________________________| ||__Ok___||
- | Network address__________ | _______ |
- | |_________________________| ||Cancel_||
- | Service or port | |
- | () Telnet ____________ | |
- | () Custom |____________| | |
- | Configuration | _______ |
- | __________________________ ||_ Help_||
- ||__________________________| | |
- |______________________________|_________|
-
- In the 'Name' field, enter the name of the session ('Foobar.com FTP site', 'Shell Account' etc etc.
- Then, in the 'Network address' field, enter the IP address or URL of the computer you want to
- connect to (e.g. shell.foobarisp.com, 127.0.0.1, ftp.someftparchive.com, news.somedomain.com)
- Click Custom then type the port number (port numbers above.) Then select a terminal emulation
- type from the 'Configuration' field. Hit Ok, click on the session you've just created and you are using Ewan.
- If ur a r1ch k1dd13 and own a Mac, try using NiftyTelnet (dead simple to use) or NCSA Telnet (very configurable.)
- Find these telnet clients at TUCOWS or other software archive (www.tucows.com)
- That's a basic intro to telnet, but that's all you need to know to get started. Have phun.
-
- Shoutz to: J.C., wermboy(hey whats the weather like), LordPsYchO, Braxus,
- ProtocolD(Thanx for info on Novell) , d4hp, XeXeN, kM and all the
- others on #hackersclub who have taught me something.
-
- ----
-
- ********