Telnet is a terminal emulation protocol. It allows you to connect to a server
using your PC as a terminal. Once you start a telnet session, all of your
work is done on the remote system - all commands are executed on the remote
system and all files are created and deleted on the remote system.
Start a telnet session with the command: telnet
<hostname>
If the remote system accepts the request for a telnet session, you will get
a login prompt.
To terminate the telnet session, logout.
Exercises:
If you are not connected to the Internet, you can still run a practice telnet
session by running a telnet session to your own PC (rather mind-bending -
your own PC is acting as both the local and the remote servers). Try the
following:
telnet localhost
login as alterego
enter the command: who am i
you should see output similar to the following line: floppixabc!alterego ttyp0 MMM dd, hh:mm (localhost)
This means: you are logged in on the server floppixabc, your userid is alterego,
you are using virtual console ttyp0, the date is MMM dd, hh:mm and you are
logged in from localhost (this will be the name or the IP of the system you
are connected from)
when you logout, the telnet connection is terminated
telnet localhost again. The server will respond will several
messages: Connected to localhost
Escape character is '^]'
Pay attention to the escape character; it can differ from server to server;
if you want to abort a job on the remote system, use the escape character.
If you are connected to the Internet under Floppix, you can telnet from Floppix
to any server where you have a login account and telnet access.