TELNET Basics

BUPT/QMUL
2015-04-14
Refer to Chapter 24, Textbook
Agenda
 A brief introduction to TELNET
 Concept of remote/virtual terminal
 TELNET operations
 TELNET protocol
 TELNET options negotiation
 Other remote access technologies

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A Brief Introduction to TELNET

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Brief Introduction To TELNET
 Use of TELNET: BBS
 What is TELNET?
 History
 Major Ideas

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BBS: Bulletin Board System
 A computer system running software that
allows users to connect and log in to the
system using a terminal program.
 Once logged in, a user can perform functions
such as
 uploading and downloading software and data;
 reading news and bulletins;
 and exchanging messages with other users, either
through Email or in public message boards.

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Traditional BBS example:

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Example of BBS Today(1)

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Example of BBS Today(2)
telnet BBS of BYR

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What Is TELNET? (1)
 A protocol used to establish a dumb terminal session
to another computer on the Internet
 An important Internet application for remote access

TELNET

RFC 854

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 What Is TELNET? (2)
 Definition in RFC854
 The purpose of the TELNET Protocol is to provide a
general, bi-directional, byte oriented
communications facility.
 Its primary goal is to allow a standard method of
interfacing terminal devices and terminal-oriented
processes to each other.
 It is envisioned that the protocol may also be used
for terminal-terminal communication ("linking") and
process-process communication (distributed
computation).
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TELNET vs. telnet
 TELNET is a protocol that provides “a
general, bi-directional, eight-bit byte
oriented communications facility”
 telnet is a program that supports the
TELNET protocol over TCP
 Many application protocols are built
upon the TELNET protocol

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The History Of Telnet
 Telnet is simple
 Total pages of RFC 854 is 15
 HTTP (we will see later) is 176 pages

 The idea of option negotiation was a very good

design feature
 Enables telnet to evolve to meet new demands without
endless new versions of basic protocol

 Currently over 100 RFCs on telnet and its options

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Major Ideas Of TELNET
 The concept of a NVT (Network Virtual
Terminal)
 Providing a standard interface to remote systems
 The principle of negotiated options
 Enabling Telnet to evolve to meet new demands
without endless new versions of basic protocol
 A symmetric view of terminals and processes
 Allowing an arbitrary program to become a client

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Network Virtual Terminal

Command/Data
Server
Process
Standard language
NVT NVT

TCP Connection TCP

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Concept Of Remote / Virtual Terminal

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Remote Terminal Access
 Early motivation for networks was remote access to
interactive systems

 Dumb terminals (see figure on the next slide)

 Keyboard and screen with primitive communication
hardware
 Local host computer establish connection to remote host

 The challenge is that terminals and host systems

were not standardized
 local terminal was not speaking the same language as the
remote host

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Telnet Operation Environment On Early Internet

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 Problem
 Lack of common language between the terminal and
the remote host
TCP connection

?
across Internet
User’s
keyboard TELNET TELNET Server’s

?
& display Client Server system

Client System format

Server System format

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Network Virtual Terminal
 The approach to solve the problem of lack of a
common language was to define a common language
 Virtual terminal protocol (VTP)
 Transform local characteristics into standardized form
 Network virtual terminal (NVT)
 Imaginary device
 Well defined set of characteristics
 Both sides generate data and control signals in native
language but translates them to NVT form
 The sending side translates native data and control signals
into NVT form before sending out
 the receiving side gets the NVT data and signals and
translates into its native form
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 NVT Operation
 Accommodating heterogeneity
Converting client system Converting NVT format
format into NVT format into server system format
TCP connection
across Internet
User’s
keyboard TELNET TELNET Server’s
& display Client Server system

Converting NVT format into Converting server system

client system format format into NVT format

Client System format

TELNET client and server convert between
Server System format
native format and NVT format
NVT format 21
NVT Format
 NVT use two sets of characters: data and control
 Standard format of data characters
Standard ASCII

 Standard format of control characters

 Standard format has been extended to support the data

characters to be transmitted as 8 bit bytes with most significant
bit set to 1.
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TELNET Operations

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 TELNET Operations
 Connection management
 Connection request, establish and terminate

 Telnet uses TCP (port 23) by default

 Negotiation
 To determine mutually agreeable set of characteristics and

options
 Exchange of control information (e.g. end of line), commands
and transfer of data between two correspondents
 A typical telnet session is exchange of data between terminal
and host
 Multiple rounds

 Not only for accessing remote accounts; was also used for

interactive system
 Try “telnet bbs.byr.cn”
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TELNET Protocol

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Related RFCs
 Basic protocol
 RFC854: Telnet Protocol Specification

 Options
 RFC855: Telnet Option Specifications
 RFC856: Telnet Binary Transmission
 RFC857: Telnet Echo Option
 RFC858: Telnet Suppress Go Ahead Option
 RFC859: Telnet Status Option
 …

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Some Features
 TCP connection: directed toward port 23 of
the server being asked to perform a service
 Data and control multiplexed over the same
connection
 NVT - representation of a generic terminal
 Negotiated options - provides a standard
language for communication of terminal
control functions

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TELNET Protocol
 Transmission of data
 Standard representation of control
functions

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 Transmission Of Data (1)
 Data path from the user’s keyboard to the remote system

Client reads Client sends

from terminal TELNET to server TELNET
client (NVT) server

User’s Server receives

keyboard from client
& display Operating (NVT) Operating Server
system system sends to
pseudo
terminal
TCP/IP
internet

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Transmission Of Data (2)
 Data sent half-duplex
 Terminal-to-process, newline signifies end of user input
 Process-to-terminal, control signal Go Ahead(GA) is used
 Underlying TCP full duplex
 Control signals sent any time regardless of current data
direction
 Data sent as stream of 8-bit bytes
 No other formatting
 Control signals and other non-data information sent
as Telnet commands
 Byte strings embedded in data stream
 User control signals, commands between Telnet processes
as part of protocol and option negotiation and
subnegotiation 30
Control Functions (1)
 TELNET includes support for a series of
control functions commonly supported
by servers
 This provides a uniform mechanism for
communication of (the supported)
control functions
 You can imagine them as some extra
virtual keys in the NVT keyboard

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Control Functions (2)
 Interrupt Process (IP)
 Suspend/interrupt/abort/terminate process
 Abort Output (AO)
 allow a process, which is generating output, to run to
completion but without sending the output to the user's
terminal
 Are You There (AYT)
 check to see if system is still running
 Erase Character (EC)
 delete last character sent
 typically used to edit keyboard input
 Erase Line (EL)
 delete all input in current line
 typically used to edit keyboard input
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Control Functions (3) – delivery
Decimal
Command Description
Codes
IAC 255 Interpret next octet as command
DONT 254 Denial of request to perform specific option
DO 253 Approval to allow specific option
WONT 252 Refusal to perform specific option
WILL 251 Agreement to perform specific option
SB 250 Start of option subnegotiation
GA 249 Go ahead
EL 248 Erase line
EC 247 Erase character
AYT 246 Are you there
AO 245 Abort output
IP 244 Interrupt process
BRK 243 Break
DMARK 242 Data mark
NOP 241 No operation
SE 240 End of subnegotiation
EOR 239 End of record 33
Control Functions (4) – IAC
 TELNET command structure
 at least a two byte sequence: the IAC (Interpret as
Command) escape character followed by the code for the
command
 The IAC code is 255
 If a 255 is sent as data - it must be followed by another 255
 Looking for a command
 Each receiver must look at each byte that arrives and look
for an IAC
 If IAC is found and the next byte is “IAC” - a single data byte
(value 255) is presented to the application/ terminal
 If IAC is followed by any other code - the TELNET layer
interprets this as a command

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Control Functions (5)
– DO, DONT, WILL, WONT
 Used for options negotiation
 Examples

Sender Receiver Meaning

Sender wants to active a option, and receiver

WILL → ← DO
agrees
Sender wants to active a option, and receiver
WILL → ← DON’T
refuses
Sender wants receiver to active a option, and
DO → ← WILL
receiver agrees
Sender wants receiver to active a option, and
DO → ← WONT
receiver refuses

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TELNET Options Negotiation

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Motivations
 All NVTs support a minimal set of capabilities
 Some terminals have more capabilites than
the minimal set
 The two endpoints negotiate a set of
mutually acceptable options (character set,
echo mode, etc)
 The set of options is not part of the TELNET
protocol, so that new terminal features can
be incorporated without changing the TELNET
protocol

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Option Examples
 echo modes
 Keyboard input be echoed on the terminal side or
not
 Line mode vs. character mode
 One line or one character per transmission
 character set (EBCDIC vs. ASCII)
 EBCDIC - Extended Binary-Coded Decimal
Interchange Code
 ASCII - American Standard Code for Information
Interchange

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 Options Negotiation
 Each option is assigned a byte value
 The DO, DONT, WILL, and WONT commands
are used to negotiate options
 Options negotiation is symmetric
 Steps must be taken to avoid option
processing loops
 Subnegotiations are used when more
information is needed, such as when
negotiating terminal type, window size, etc
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Example:
Negotiation of Echo Option
Client Server

Do enable the echo option

ECHO DO IAC

IAC WILL ECHO

I will enable the echo option

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TELNET Options List (1)

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TELNET Options List (2)

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 A Telnet Session Example (1)
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator> telnet 192.168.1.253
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 <Nahant Update 1>
Kernel 2.6.9-11.Elsmp on an i686
Login: shiyan
Password:
Last login: Sun Nov 11 17:48:30 from 192.168.1.168
[shiyan@localhost ~]$

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Some options negotiated firstly

IAC DO Terminal Type

255 253 24
ff fd 18

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 Suboption about the terminal type
ANSI / DEC / IBM3270 / …

IAC SB Terminal Type IAC SE

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 Some prompt information
given by the server
Data and control multiplexed over the same connection

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When I typed in login ID “shiyan”
Character ‘s’ sent
to server

Echo character ‘s’

to client
Character ‘h’ sent
to server

Echo character ‘h’

to client
……
Character mode

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When I pressed ENTER

CR LF
13 10
0d 0a

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Summary (1) – usages of telnet
 Use Internet accounts you may have on
remote computers
 you need an account (login ID) and password on
the remote computer to permit access
 Use free services accessible with telnet, e.g.
 library catalogues
 databases
 BBS (Bulletin Board System)
 Router/switch configuration

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Summary (2) – Disadvantages of telnet
 Poor user interface
 Based on dumb terminal
 Text-only display
 Monochrome
 One color for text, one for background
 Have to type command-line commands
 Often have complex syntax
 Not very secure, SSH made enhancement
 TELNET does not encrypt any data sent over
the connection (including passwords) 50
Other Remote Access Technologies

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Other Remote Access Technologies

 Remote login in text-based system

 telnet
 SSH
 Rlogin
 Remote desktop in windowing system
 VNC (Virtual Network Computing)
 RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)

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SSH (1) – brief information
 Secure Shell
 Command line terminal connection tool
 All traffic encrypted
 Both ends authenticate themselves to the other end
 Ability to carry and encrypt non-terminal traffic
 Private key kept on client, public key stored on server
 Now, it is an IETF standard
 RFC4251, The Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol

Architecture

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SSH (2) – two enhancements of telnet

 Providing secure communications

 Providing users with the ability to
perform additional, independent data
transfer over the same connection that
is used for remote login

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SSH (3) – three major mechanisms
 A transport layer protocol that provides sever
authentication, data confidentiality, and data integrity
with perfect forward secrecy

 A user authentication protocol that authenticates the

user to the server

 A connection protocol that multiplexes multiple

logical communications channels over a single
underlying SSH connection
 Port forwarding, could be used as a secure tunnel

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SSH (4) – tools
 PuTTy

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57
Other Ways Of Remote Access
 Except telnet, there are other ways
 rlogin family utility
 VNC (Virtual network computing)
 RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)
 Comparison with Telnet

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Helpful URLs
 RFCs
 http://www.ietf.org/
 Useful utilities
 http://winfiles.search.com/search?cat=316&tag=ex.sa.fd.srch.wf&q
=TELNET
 About telnet
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telnet
 http://baike.baidu.com/view/44255.htm
 About SSH
 http://www.ssh.com
 http://www.openssh.org
 About realVNC
 http://www.realvnc.com/

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Abbreviations of Week 6-9
BBS Bulletin Board System
BOOTP BOOTstrap Protocol
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DNS Domain Name System
FQDN Fully Qualified Domain Name
IAC Interpret As Command
MSC Message Sequence Chart
NVT Network Virtual Terminal
SSH Secure SHell
STD State Transition Diagram
TLD Top Level Domain
TLV Type-Length-Value
TTL Time To Live

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