NAME
telnet
—
user interface to the TELNET
protocol
SYNOPSIS
telnet |
[-468EFKLNacdfruxy ] [-S
tos] [-X
authtype] [-e
escapechar] [-k
realm] [-l
user] [-n
tracefile] [-s
src_addr] [host
[port]] |
DESCRIPTION
Thetelnet
command is used to communicate with another
host using the TELNET protocol. If telnet
is invoked
without the host argument, it enters command mode,
indicated by its prompt (“telnet>
”).
In this mode, it accepts and executes the commands listed below. If it is
invoked with arguments, it performs an open
command
with those arguments.
Options:
-4
- Forces
telnet
to use IPv4 addresses only. -6
- Forces
telnet
to use IPv6 addresses only. -8
- Specifies an 8-bit data path. This causes an attempt to negotiate the
TELNET BINARY
option on both input and output. -E
- Stops any character from being recognized as an escape character.
-F
- If Kerberos V5 authentication is being used, the
-F
option allows the local credentials to be forwarded to the remote system, including any credentials that have already been forwarded into the local environment. -K
- Specifies no automatic login to the remote system. This is now the default, so this option is ignored.
-L
- Specifies an 8-bit data path on output. This causes the
BINARY
option to be negotiated on output. -N
- Prevents IP address to name lookup when destination host is given as an IP address.
-S
tos- Sets the IP type-of-service (TOS) option for the telnet connection to the value tos, which can be a numeric TOS value or, on systems that support it, a symbolic TOS name found in the /etc/iptos file.
-X
atype- Disables the atype type of authentication.
-a
- Attempt automatic login. Currently, this sends the user name via the
USER
variable of theENVIRON
option if supported by the remote system. The name used is that of the current user as returned by getlogin(2) if it agrees with the current user ID, otherwise it is the name associated with the user ID. -c
- Disables the reading of the user's .telnetrc file.
(See the
toggle skiprc
command on this man page.) -d
- Sets the initial value of the
debug
toggle toTRUE
. -e
escapechar- Sets the initial
telnet
escape character to escapechar. If escapechar is omitted, then there will be no escape character. -f
- If Kerberos V5 authentication is being used, the
-f
option allows the local credentials to be forwarded to the remote system. -k
realm- If Kerberos authentication is being used, the
-k
option requests thattelnet
obtain tickets for the remote host in realm realm instead of the remote host's realm, as determined by krb_realmofhost(3). -l
user- When connecting to the remote system, if the remote system understands the
ENVIRON
option, then user will be sent to the remote system as the value for the variableUSER
. This option implies the-a
option. This option may also be used with theopen
command. -n
tracefile- Opens tracefile for recording trace information. See
the
set tracefile
command below. -r
- Specifies a user interface similar to
rlogin(1) (net/bsdrcmds). In this mode, the
escape character is set to the tilde (~) character, unless modified by the
-e
option. -s
src_addr- Set the source IP address for the
telnet
connection to src_addr, which can be an IP address or a host name. -u
- Forces
telnet
to useAF_UNIX
addresses only (e.g., UNIX domain sockets, accessed with a file path). -x
- Turns on encryption of the data stream if possible. This is now the default, so this option is ignored.
-y
- Suppresses encryption of the data stream.
- host
- Indicates the official name, an alias, or the Internet address of a remote
host. If host starts with a
‘
/
’,telnet
establishes a connection to the corresponding named socket. - port
- Indicates a port number (address of an application). If a number is not
specified, the default
telnet
port is used.
When in rlogin mode, a line of the form ~. disconnects from the
remote host; ~ is the telnet
escape character.
Similarly, the line ~^Z suspends the telnet
session.
The line ~^] escapes to the normal telnet
escape
prompt.
Once a connection has been opened, telnet
will attempt to enable the TELNET LINEMODE
option.
If this fails, then telnet
will revert to one of two
input modes: either “character at a time” or “old line
by line” depending on what the remote system supports.
When LINEMODE
is enabled, character
processing is done on the local system, under the control of the remote
system. When input editing or character echoing is to be disabled, the
remote system will relay that information. The remote system will also relay
changes to any special characters that happen on the remote system, so that
they can take effect on the local system.
In “character at a time” mode, most text typed is immediately sent to the remote host for processing.
In “old line by line” mode, all text is echoed locally, and (normally) only completed lines are sent to the remote host. The “local echo character” (initially “^E”) may be used to turn off and on the local echo (this would mostly be used to enter passwords without the password being echoed).
If the LINEMODE
option is enabled, or if
the localchars
toggle is
TRUE
(the default for “old line by
line”; see below), the user's quit
,
intr
, and flush
characters
are trapped locally, and sent as TELNET protocol sequences to the remote
side. If LINEMODE
has ever been enabled, then the
user's susp
and eof
are also
sent as TELNET protocol sequences, and quit
is sent
as a TELNET ABORT
instead of
BREAK
. There are options (see
toggle
autoflush
and
toggle
autosynch
below)
which cause this action to flush subsequent output to the terminal (until
the remote host acknowledges the TELNET sequence) and flush previous
terminal input (in the case of quit
and
intr
).
While connected to a remote host, telnet
command mode may be entered by typing the telnet
“escape character” (initially “^]”). When in
command mode, the normal terminal editing conventions are available.
The following telnet
commands are
available. Only enough of each command to uniquely identify it need be typed
(this is also true for arguments to the mode
,
set
, toggle
,
unset
, slc
,
environ
, and display
commands).
auth
argument ...- The auth command manipulates the information sent through the
TELNET AUTHENTICATE
option. Valid arguments for theauth
command are:disable
type- Disables the specified type of authentication. To obtain a list of
available types, use the
auth disable ?
command. enable
type- Enables the specified type of authentication. To obtain a list of
available types, use the
auth enable ?
command. status
- Lists the current status of the various types of authentication.
close
- Close a TELNET session and return to command mode.
display
argument ...- Displays all, or some, of the
set
andtoggle
values (see below). encrypt
argument ...- The encrypt command manipulates the information sent through the
TELNET ENCRYPT
option.Valid arguments for the
encrypt
command are:disable
type [input
|output
]- Disables the specified type of encryption. If you omit the input and
output, both input and output are disabled. To obtain a list of
available types, use the
encrypt disable ?
command. enable
type [input
|output
]- Enables the specified type of encryption. If you omit input and
output, both input and output are enabled. To obtain a list of
available types, use the
encrypt enable ?
command. input
- This is the same as the
encrypt start input
command. -input
- This is the same as the
encrypt stop input
command. output
- This is the same as the
encrypt start output
command. -output
- This is the same as the
encrypt stop output
command. start
[input
|output
]- Attempts to start encryption. If you omit
input
andoutput
, both input and output are enabled. To obtain a list of available types, use theencrypt enable ?
command. status
- Lists the current status of encryption.
stop
[input
|output
]- Stops encryption. If you omit input and output, encryption is on both input and output.
type
type- Sets the default type of encryption to be used with later
encrypt start
orencrypt stop
commands.
environ
arguments ...- The
environ
command is used to manipulate the variables that may be sent through theTELNET ENVIRON
option. The initial set of variables is taken from the users environment, with only theDISPLAY
andPRINTER
variables being exported by default. TheUSER
variable is also exported if the-a
or-l
options are used.Valid arguments for the
environ
command are:define
variable value- Define the variable variable to have a value of value. Any variables defined by this command are automatically exported. The value may be enclosed in single or double quotes so that tabs and spaces may be included.
undefine
variable- Remove variable from the list of environment variables.
export
variable- Mark the variable variable to be exported to the remote side.
unexport
variable- Mark the variable variable to not be exported unless explicitly asked for by the remote side.
list
- List the current set of environment variables. Those marked with a
*
will be sent automatically, other variables will only be sent if explicitly requested. ?
- Prints out help information for the
environ
command.
logout
- Sends the
TELNET LOGOUT
option to the remote side. This command is similar to aclose
command; however, if the remote side does not support theLOGOUT
option, nothing happens. If, however, the remote side does support theLOGOUT
option, this command should cause the remote side to close the TELNET connection. If the remote side also supports the concept of suspending a user's session for later reattachment, the logout argument indicates that you should terminate the session immediately. mode
type- Type is one of several options, depending on the
state of the TELNET session. The remote host is asked for permission to go
into the requested mode. If the remote host is capable of entering that
mode, the requested mode will be entered.
character
- Disable the
TELNET LINEMODE
option, or, if the remote side does not understand theLINEMODE
option, then enter “character at a time” mode. line
- Enable the
TELNET LINEMODE
option, or, if the remote side does not understand theLINEMODE
option, then attempt to enter “old-line-by-line” mode. isig
(-isig
)- Attempt to enable (disable) the
TRAPSIG
mode of theLINEMODE
option. This requires that theLINEMODE
option be enabled. edit
(-edit
)- Attempt to enable (disable) the
EDIT
mode of theLINEMODE
option. This requires that theLINEMODE
option be enabled. softtabs
(-softtabs
)- Attempt to enable (disable) the
SOFT_TAB
mode of theLINEMODE
option. This requires that theLINEMODE
option be enabled. litecho
(-litecho
)- Attempt to enable (disable) the
LIT_ECHO
mode of theLINEMODE
option. This requires that theLINEMODE
option be enabled. ?
- Prints out help information for the
mode
command.
open
host [-l
user] [[-
]port]- Open a connection to the named host. If no port number is specified,
telnet
will attempt to contact a TELNET server at the default port. The host specification may be either a host name (see hosts(5)), an Internet address specified in the “dot notation” (see inet(3)), or IPv6 host name or IPv6 coloned-hexadecimal address. The-l
option may be used to specify the user name to be passed to the remote system via theENVIRON
option. When connecting to a non-standard port,telnet
omits any automatic initiation of TELNET options. When the port number is preceded by a minus sign, the initial option negotiation is done. After establishing a connection, the file .telnetrc in the users home directory is opened. Lines beginning with a # are comment lines. Blank lines are ignored. Lines that begin without white space are the start of a machine entry. The first thing on the line is the name of the machine that is being connected to. The rest of the line, and successive lines that begin with white space are assumed to betelnet
commands and are processed as if they had been typed in manually to thetelnet
command prompt. quit
- Close any open TELNET session and exit
telnet
. An end of file (in command mode) will also close a session and exit. send
arguments- Sends one or more special character sequences to the remote host. The
following are the arguments which may be specified (more than one argument
may be specified at a time):
abort
- Sends the
TELNET ABORT
(Abort processes) sequence. ao
- Sends the
TELNET AO
(Abort Output) sequence, which should cause the remote system to flush all output from the remote system to the user's terminal. ayt
- Sends the
TELNET AYT
(Are You There) sequence, to which the remote system may or may not choose to respond. brk
- Sends the
TELNET BRK
(Break) sequence, which may have significance to the remote system. ec
- Sends the
TELNET EC
(Erase Character) sequence, which should cause the remote system to erase the last character entered. el
- Sends the
TELNET EL
(Erase Line) sequence, which should cause the remote system to erase the line currently being entered. eof
- Sends the
TELNET EOF
(End Of File) sequence. eor
- Sends the
TELNET EOR
(End of Record) sequence. escape
- Sends the current
telnet
escape character (initially “^”). ga
- Sends the
TELNET GA
(Go Ahead) sequence, which likely has no significance to the remote system. getstatus
- If the remote side supports the
TELNET STATUS
command,getstatus
will send the subnegotiation to request that the server send its current option status. ip
- Sends the
TELNET IP
(Interrupt Process) sequence, which should cause the remote system to abort the currently running process. nop
- Sends the
TELNET NOP
(No OPeration) sequence. susp
- Sends the
TELNET SUSP
(SUSPend process) sequence. synch
- Sends the
TELNET SYNCH
sequence. This sequence causes the remote system to discard all previously typed (but not yet read) input. This sequence is sent as TCP urgent data (and may not work if the remote system is a 4.2BSD system -- if it doesn't work, a lower case “r” may be echoed on the terminal). do
cmddont
cmdwill
cmdwont
cmd- Sends the
TELNET DO
cmd sequence. Cmd can be either a decimal number between 0 and 255, or a symbolic name for a specificTELNET
command. Cmd can also be eitherhelp
or?
to print out help information, including a list of known symbolic names. ?
- Prints out help information for the
send
command.
set
argument valueunset
argument value- The
set
command will set any one of a number oftelnet
variables to a specific value or toTRUE
. The special valueoff
turns off the function associated with the variable, this is equivalent to using theunset
command. Theunset
command will disable or set toFALSE
any of the specified functions. The values of variables may be interrogated with thedisplay
command. The variables which may be set or unset, but not toggled, are listed here. In addition, any of the variables for thetoggle
command may be explicitly set or unset using theset
andunset
commands.ayt
- If TELNET is in localchars mode, or
LINEMODE
is enabled, and the status character is typed, aTELNET AYT
sequence (seesend ayt
preceding) is sent to the remote host. The initial value for the “Are You There” character is the terminal's status character. echo
- This is the value (initially “^E”) which, when in “line by line” mode, toggles between doing local echoing of entered characters (for normal processing), and suppressing echoing of entered characters (for entering, say, a password).
eof
- If
telnet
is operating inLINEMODE
or “old line by line” mode, entering this character as the first character on a line will cause this character to be sent to the remote system. The initial value of the eof character is taken to be the terminal'seof
character. erase
- If
telnet
is inlocalchars
mode (seetoggle
localchars
below), and iftelnet
is operating in “character at a time” mode, then when this character is typed, aTELNET EC
sequence (seesend
ec
above) is sent to the remote system. The initial value for the erase character is taken to be the terminal'serase
character. escape
- This is the
telnet
escape character (initially “^[”) which causes entry intotelnet
command mode (when connected to a remote system). flushoutput
- If
telnet
is inlocalchars
mode (seetoggle
localchars
below) and theflushoutput
character is typed, aTELNET AO
sequence (seesend
ao
above) is sent to the remote host. The initial value for the flush character is taken to be the terminal'sflush
character. forw1
forw2
- If
telnet
is operating inLINEMODE
, these are the characters that, when typed, cause partial lines to be forwarded to the remote system. The initial value for the forwarding characters are taken from the terminal's eol and eol2 characters. interrupt
- If
telnet
is inlocalchars
mode (seetoggle
localchars
below) and theinterrupt
character is typed, aTELNET IP
sequence (seesend
ip
above) is sent to the remote host. The initial value for the interrupt character is taken to be the terminal'sintr
character. kill
- If
telnet
is inlocalchars
mode (seetoggle
localchars
below),and
iftelnet
is operating in “character at a time” mode, then when this character is typed, aTELNET EL
sequence (seesend
el
above) is sent to the remote system. The initial value for the kill character is taken to be the terminal'skill
character. lnext
- If
telnet
is operating inLINEMODE
or “old line by line” mode, then this character is taken to be the terminal'slnext
character. The initial value for the lnext character is taken to be the terminal'slnext
character. quit
- If
telnet
is inlocalchars
mode (seetoggle
localchars
below) and thequit
character is typed, aTELNET BRK
sequence (seesend
brk
above) is sent to the remote host. The initial value for the quit character is taken to be the terminal'squit
character. reprint
- If
telnet
is operating inLINEMODE
or “old line by line” mode, then this character is taken to be the terminal'sreprint
character. The initial value for the reprint character is taken to be the terminal'sreprint
character. rlogin
- This is the rlogin escape character. If set, the normal
telnet
escape character is ignored unless it is preceded by this character at the beginning of a line. This character, at the beginning of a line followed by a "." closes the connection; when followed by a ^Z it suspends thetelnet
command. The initial state is to disable therlogin
escape character. start
- If the
TELNET TOGGLE-FLOW-CONTROL
option has been enabled, then this character is taken to be the terminal'sstart
character. The initial value for the start character is taken to be the terminal'sstart
character. stop
- If the
TELNET TOGGLE-FLOW-CONTROL
option has been enabled, then this character is taken to be the terminal'sstop
character. The initial value for the stop character is taken to be the terminal'sstop
character. susp
- If
telnet
is inlocalchars
mode, orLINEMODE
is enabled, and thesuspend
character is typed, aTELNET SUSP
sequence (seesend
susp
above) is sent to the remote host. The initial value for the suspend character is taken to be the terminal'ssuspend
character. tracefile
- This is the file to which the output, caused by
netdata
oroption
tracing beingTRUE
, will be written. If it is set to “-
”, then tracing information will be written to standard output (the default). worderase
- If
telnet
is operating inLINEMODE
or “old line by line” mode, then this character is taken to be the terminal'sworderase
character. The initial value for the worderase character is taken to be the terminal'sworderase
character. ?
- Displays the legal
set
(unset
) commands.
opie
sequence challenge- The
opie
command computes a response to the OPIE challenge. slc
state- The
slc
command (Set Local Characters) is used to set or change the state of the special characters when theTELNET LINEMODE
option has been enabled. Special characters are characters that get mapped to TELNET commands sequences (likeip
orquit
) or line editing characters (likeerase
andkill
). By default, the local special characters are exported.check
- Verify the current settings for the current special characters. The remote side is requested to send all the current special character settings, and if there are any discrepancies with the local side, the local side will switch to the remote value.
export
- Switch to the local defaults for the special characters. The local
default characters are those of the local terminal at the time when
telnet
was started. import
- Switch to the remote defaults for the special characters. The remote default characters are those of the remote system at the time when the TELNET connection was established.
?
- Prints out help information for the
slc
command.
status
- Show the current status of
telnet
. This includes the peer one is connected to, as well as the current mode. toggle
arguments ...- Toggle (between
TRUE
andFALSE
) various flags that control howtelnet
responds to events. These flags may be set explicitly toTRUE
orFALSE
using theset
andunset
commands listed above. More than one argument may be specified. The state of these flags may be interrogated with thedisplay
command. Valid arguments are:authdebug
- Turns on debugging information for the authentication code.
autoflush
- If
autoflush
andlocalchars
are bothTRUE
, then when theao
, orquit
characters are recognized (and transformed into TELNET sequences; seeset
above for details),telnet
refuses to display any data on the user's terminal until the remote system acknowledges (via aTELNET TIMING MARK
option) that it has processed those TELNET sequences. The initial value for this toggle isTRUE
if the terminal user had not done an "stty noflsh", otherwiseFALSE
(see stty(1)). autodecrypt
- When the
TELNET ENCRYPT
option is negotiated, by default the actual encryption (decryption) of the data stream does not start automatically. The autoencrypt (autodecrypt) command states that encryption of the output (input) stream should be enabled as soon as possible. autologin
- If the remote side supports the
TELNET AUTHENTICATION
optiontelnet
attempts to use it to perform automatic authentication. If theAUTHENTICATION
option is not supported, the user's login name are propagated through theTELNET ENVIRON
option. This command is the same as specifying-a
option on theopen
command. autosynch
- If
autosynch
andlocalchars
are bothTRUE
, then when either theintr
orquit
characters is typed (seeset
above for descriptions of theintr
andquit
characters), the resulting TELNET sequence sent is followed by theTELNET SYNCH
sequence. This procedureshould
cause the remote system to begin throwing away all previously typed input until both of the TELNET sequences have been read and acted upon. The initial value of this toggle isFALSE
. binary
- Enable or disable the
TELNET BINARY
option on both input and output. inbinary
- Enable or disable the
TELNET BINARY
option on input. outbinary
- Enable or disable the
TELNET BINARY
option on output. crlf
- If this is
TRUE
, then carriage returns will be sent as<CR><LF>
. If this isFALSE
, then carriage returns will be send as<CR><NUL>
. The initial value for this toggle isFALSE
. crmod
- Toggle carriage return mode. When this mode is enabled, most carriage
return characters received from the remote host will be mapped into a
carriage return followed by a line feed. This mode does not affect
those characters typed by the user, only those received from the
remote host. This mode is not very useful unless the remote host only
sends carriage return, but never line feed. The initial value for this
toggle is
FALSE
. debug
- Toggles socket level debugging (useful only to the
super user
). The initial value for this toggle isFALSE
. encdebug
- Turns on debugging information for the encryption code.
localchars
- If this is
TRUE
, then theflush
,interrupt
,quit
,erase
, andkill
characters (seeset
above) are recognized locally, and transformed into (hopefully) appropriate TELNET control sequences (respectivelyao
,ip
,brk
,ec
, andel
; seesend
above). The initial value for this toggle isTRUE
in “old line by line” mode, andFALSE
in “character at a time” mode. When theLINEMODE
option is enabled, the value oflocalchars
is ignored, and assumed to always beTRUE
. IfLINEMODE
has ever been enabled, thenquit
is sent asabort
, andeof
andsuspend
are sent aseof
andsusp
(seesend
above). netdata
- Toggles the display of all network data (in hexadecimal format). The
initial value for this toggle is
FALSE
. options
- Toggles the display of some internal
telnet
protocol processing (having to do with TELNET options). The initial value for this toggle isFALSE
. prettydump
- When the
netdata
toggle is enabled, ifprettydump
is enabled the output from thenetdata
command will be formatted in a more user readable format. Spaces are put between each character in the output, and the beginning of anytelnet
escape sequence is preceded by a '*' to aid in locating them. skiprc
- When the skiprc toggle is
TRUE
,telnet
skips the reading of the .telnetrc file in the users home directory when connections are opened. The initial value for this toggle isFALSE
. termdata
- Toggles the display of all terminal data (in hexadecimal format). The
initial value for this toggle is
FALSE
. verbose_encrypt
- When the
verbose_encrypt
toggle isTRUE
,telnet
prints out a message each time encryption is enabled or disabled. The initial value for this toggle isFALSE
. ?
- Displays the legal
toggle
commands.
z
- Suspend
telnet
. This command only works when the user is using the csh(1). !
[command]- Execute a single command in a subshell on the local system. If command is omitted, then an interactive subshell is invoked.
?
[command]- Get help. With no arguments,
telnet
prints a help summary. If command is specified,telnet
will print the help information for just that command.
ENVIRONMENT
The telnet
utility uses at least the
HOME
, SHELL
,
DISPLAY
, and TERM
environment variables. Other environment variables may be propagated to the
other side via the TELNET ENVIRON
option.
FILES
- ~/.telnetrc
- user customized telnet startup values
SEE ALSO
rlogin(1) (net/bsdrcmds), rsh(1) (net/bsdrcmds), hosts(5), nologin(5), telnetd(8)
HISTORY
The telnet
command appeared in
4.2BSD.
IPv6 support was added by WIDE/KAME project.
NOTES
On some remote systems, echo has to be turned off manually when in “old line by line” mode.
In “old line by line” mode or
LINEMODE
the terminal's eof
character is only recognized (and sent to the remote system) when it is the
first character on a line.