Telnet is an Internet application that allows you to connect to remote Internet sites. Telnet acts much in the same way as your modem communications software, only it communicates with other computers over the Internet, instead of your standard phone lines.

Telnet Software

To use Telnet, you first need a Telnet client application. There are many good Telnet applications available for downloading on the Internet, many of them free.

HINT: Many Web browsers will automatically start your Telnet software when they encounter the telnet:// prefix protocol. To use this feature, you need to tell your browser where it can find your Telnet application. If using Netscape, this information can be entered from the General Preferences menu.

Using Telnet

To connect to a remote Internet site, you first need to know either its domain name or IP address, as well as the port you wish to connect to. For the following examples, we'll pretend that we're trying to connect to port 600 of the Internet site flower.example.org. Some Telnet applications display a dialogue box with entry spaces for the Internet site (where you enter the domain name) and port number. Others simply display one entry box, where you usually enter the domain name (or IP address) and the port number in one of the following formats:

flower.example.org:600 (most common format)
or
flower.example.org 600

In most cases, once your computer has connected with the remote Internet site, you will be asked to enter a login ID and a password. If you are a user on the Internet site, simply enter your user ID where it asks for a login: and your password where it asks for a password (be careful: your password will not actually be displayed when you type it, so make sure you type it in correctly). If you entered some information incorrectly, you will receive the message login incorrect. Just try again. If you still receive the message, you are probably not entering the right information. Most Internet sites will disconnect you if you can't supply a valid login and password after three tries.

If you are not a user on the Internet site, you might be able to login under the user ID guest or newuser (if this is the case, the password is usually the same as the user ID - or the Internet site might even tell you what password to use). Once you have successfully logged in, you will probably be given either a menu or a Unix prompt. At this point, you can browser through the contents of the remote Internet site or, depending on your user level (or security level), manipulate the files and/or directories on that site.