Telnet Server

Question

Could someone please explain the context in which the ZD1100 9.6.1.0 build 15 supports telnet server?

What is the use case for this? Why would it be useful to include this on the ZD?

Never come across telnet server before so wondering how it is useful on the ZD.

A quick Google tells me what telnet server is (and i do know and use regular telnet - often - just never telnet server).

Thanks.

unknown · Answer

Keith,

Thanks for the reply.

OK understand. So enabling the telnet server option is simply saying "The ZD is now able to take incoming telnet requests"

Thanks for the explanation. In all my time messing with telnet i've never heard it referenced as telnet server (on the device that accepts the incoming connection) although thats obviously what it is.

keith_redfield · Answer

Hi Mark,

When you've used telnet, the device on the other end was running a telnet server (though usually referred to as a daemon at least in *nix systems). You were using the client.

Telnet was once the dominant method of CLI access, but has largely been deprecated to SSH since telnet is an inherently insecure protocol (credentials are sent cleartext). So we also have an SSH server (with the cute name of "dropbear", and so you may see event log entries with that mentioned) to provide secure CLI access.  An example of an SSH client is PUTTY which we often refer people to.

We've had telnet (and I think it's still an option to enable it) since our first products, but you generally should not enable it.