Telnet : Tutorial

Telnet

Telnet can be used to access your own remotte Telnet account, UNIX workstation or a public information resource set up for Telnet, such as the US Library of Congress. If you access your own computer or account remotely by Telnet, you will use the UNIX commands of the UNIX shell run at the destination. However, information sources that are available using Telnet do not require knowledge of UNIX. All you need, besides a network connection, is a Telnet client like the Windows' Run dialog box or a UNIX command line.

The Telnet command is similar to using the ftp command. More than just license to transfer and move files around like ftp, though, Telnet gives you access to the destination system's functions and files. The user name you use to access the space determines the limits on what you can do -- restricted to just using the menu to find information or permitted the liberty to execute programs. Unlike ftp, Telnet has no graphical user interface (GUI). It's all ascii and command line - set your mouse aside.

Telnet was one of the Internet's first tools, created to work across a broad range of platforms, terminals and displays. Now that Windows has Telnet built-in (via the Run dialog box or more lately, using the address box on the browser), it's easy to log into a telnet account or site on the Internet once you have an Internet connection running on both computers. If the source or the destination computer sit behind a firewall, either the firewalls have to allow your telnet sessions or you need to be able to log into the firewall and Telnet from or to the public side of it. Get information about security policy from the network administrator.
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If your own computer is the destination of the Telnet session, it must be configured to let you run programs -- read your email, for example. And you need to learn the menu commands of these programs. However, programs can be run on the remote UNIX system to let you access email stored there using an email program like Pine, Elm or Mail. Common editors are Pico, VI and EMACS. If a program only has a GUI interface, Telnet probably won't reach the data.

UNIX gives you extensive help in its manual pages. On a UNIX command line, type man Telnet to learn more about Telnet and its commands. Hadn't heard of man? Type man man

When accessing public Telnet sites, be sure to read and follow instructions because every Telnet site can be quite different in the way it provides information to you, whether it requires using the menu system or remembering complex commands.

To open a Telnet session, go to the UNIX command line or the Windows Run dialog box, and type

telnet [hostname] enter your user name and password, or the access information you know the computer requires

Command line interface is a different world of computing, but Telnet's accessibility throughout the world -- most Internet cafés are running Windows - makes it worth learning a few command lines. On the other hand, accessing public information via Telnet is more specialized these days with so much information now offered via the World Wide Web. Here are a few public sites to try. If you use a recent browser, it will launch Telnet for you.

Credits by chivaa