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George Nole
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 Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:57 pm Post subject: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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Hello everyone,
This is my first post to this group, so please be patient with me.
I have bought recently an "ASUS eeePC 701" computer with Xanros Linux
installed. For reasons not clear to me, the distributors do not provide
for administrator level access, by refusing to disclose the required
password.
This computer does not provide FTP and TELNET clients as standard and
the distributors provide no support in this regard.
I have managed to download and install successfully a fully featured FTP
client as a Mozilla fire-fox ad-on but not a TELNET client.
I want -while connected to the internet- to telnet to my SHELL account
in a remote machine.
By not having administrator's access, I cannot use apt-get install telnet.
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
George.
(Remove xxx from my e-mail address to reply by e-mail.) |
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Kevin Buhr
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| Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:21 pm Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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George Nole <gnole@xxxskymesh.com.au> writes:
| Quote: |
I have bought recently an "ASUS eeePC 701" computer with Xanros Linux
installed. For reasons not clear to me, the distributors do not
provide for administrator level access, by refusing to disclose the
required password.
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Have you seen this?
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/eee-pc-review.ars/5
It looks like you should be able to type Ctrl+Alt+T to get a terminal.
Then, the "sudo" command can be used to run things with administrator
access. It may be as simple as doing:
sudo apt-get install telnet-ssl
if the "telnet-ssl" package is available in the ASUS repository.
Then, you can just run telnet from the terminal (as a normal user):
telnet the.host.you.want.com
Otherwise, this command:
apt-cache search telnet
will show packages in the ASUS repository that match the search term
"telnet", and you might be able to find something useful there. The
command "apt-cache show package-name-here" will give you a larger
description of a package.
SSH might be a better choice, though. See if the "kdessh" package can
be installed:
sudo apt-get install kdessh
and you'll have a graphical SSH client you can use (by running
"kdessh" from the command line or using one of the techniques
mentioned in the above link to enable a Start menu).
It's also possible a command-line SSH client is already installed.
So, try running:
ssh the.host.you.want.com
or use:
sudo apt-get install openssh-client
to install the usual command-line "ssh" program if "ssh" doesn't seem
to be available.
--
Kevin <buhr+un@asaurus.net> |
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Moe Trin
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:33 pm Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.help, in article
<frin65$2e0$1@aioe.org>, George Nole wrote:
| Quote: | This is my first post to this group, so please be patient with me.
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And I guess you didn't look at the previous posts to the group, or you
would have noted your post is the 11th article posted so far this year.
This newsgroup was replaced in December of 1994 with the group
'comp.os.linux.misc' which is far more active (and somewhat infested
now with trolls and spammers). A more appropriate newsgroup would be
comp.os.linux.setup which averages 14 articles a day.
| Quote: | I have bought recently an "ASUS eeePC 701" computer with Xanros Linux
installed.
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I suspect you really mean Xandros Linux, but OK
| Quote: | For reasons not clear to me, the distributors do not provide for
administrator level access, by refusing to disclose the required
password.
|
Xandros Linux is another of the many 'beginner' Linux distributions.
The 'root' user is dangerous for beginners, as the system believes
that this user knows exactly what he is doing, so there are no
safety checks. For nearly all tasks, the 'power' of the root
account is not only not needed, but not wanted. You probably have
limited root access using the 'su' or 'sudo' account. This is
intentional, as it tends to limit the damage that can be done. As
an example (DO NOT TRY THIS), if you as a user ran the command
rm -Rf /
you would get tons of error messages about not having permission
to muck with the system files. Eventually, the command would reach
your home directory, and remove all the files there. This would be
a major problem for you, but if you ran the same command as root,
you would delete all of the files on the system, leaving it in a
useless condition. For perspective, I was using UNIX for six months
before I even learned who this 'root' user was, and it was six months
MORE before I got what was the equivalent of 'su' access to a limited
set of commands. I was very nervous about using those commands, because
I was sure I was going to typ0 something, and bring the system crashing
down about me - and then discover the other users running up and down
the hallways looking for me with torches and pitchforks.
| Quote: | This computer does not provide FTP and TELNET clients as standard and
the distributors provide no support in this regard.
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FTP missing is a bit of a surprise - although it is not a required
command. (By the way, watch the capitalization - *nix is case
sensitive, and both 'ftp' and 'telnet' are lower case.) Are you sure
it's not in /usr/bin ?
[compton ~]$ which ftp
/usr/bin/ftp
[compton ~]$ whereis ftp
ftp: /usr/bin/ftp /usr/man/man1/ftp.1
[compton ~]$
As for 'telnet' that is more understandable. Telnet is an ancient
service (first specs date from 1971, while the _current_ specification
is dated May 1983), and is totally lacking in security. As such, just
about everyone knows not to try to use it. The reason is that it passes
everything including your username and password over the wire as clear
text - trivial to capture with a packet sniffer.
None the less, 'telnet' may be in the same directory as ftp. Development
of the telnet client stopped 8 years ago, but the package you are looking
for is telnet-0.17.
| Quote: | I have managed to download and install successfully a fully featured FTP
client as a Mozilla fire-fox ad-on but not a TELNET client.
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Sorry, I don't use a browser as a front end. I rarely even use a browser
as complicated/over-featured as Firefox, and using ftp or telnet directly
is much faster and less of a security risk.
| Quote: | I want -while connected to the internet- to telnet to my SHELL account
in a remote machine.
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That's REALLY not recommended - the modern replacement for telnet is ssh
and I'd be surprised if that isn't included in your distribution.
| Quote: | By not having administrator's access, I cannot use apt-get install telnet.
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I (obviously) don't use Xandros, but understand that such access is made
using the 'sudo' command. If you are using some GUI desktop, they may
have their own front-end (helper) such as 'kdesu' in KDE, and 'gksudo'
in GNOME. 'su' is probably installed, but not usable without the root
password.
[compton ~]$ whatis su sudo
su (1) - run a shell with substitute user and group IDs
sudo ( - execute a command as another user
[compton ~]$
| Quote: | Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
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I don't believe there is an English language newsgroup for Xandros (there
is a 'alt.fr.os.xandros' which is probably in French), but as Xandros is
based on Debian, you may have some luck in a Debian forum or newsgroup,
or even in the Ubuntu newsgroup. See if your server carries the groups
'alt.os.linux.debian' and/or 'alt.os.linux.ubuntu'.
Old guy |
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Joe Zeff
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:03 am Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:33:17 -0500, ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld
(Moe Trin) wrote:
| Quote: | You probably have
limited root access using the 'su' or 'sudo' account.
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Not su, because you need the root password for that. However, a
little googlemancy shows that
sudo -i
opens a bash shell as root, which gives you what you need.
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
Kill as many as you can; I have a morbid love of excess.
http://www.lasfs.info http://www.zeff.us
http://www.lasfs.info http://www.zeff.us |
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Moe Trin
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:42 am Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.help, in article
<firqt391th975pemmtl7b25aml2esrem8s@4ax.com>, Joe Zeff wrote:
| Quote: | (Moe Trin) wrote:
You probably have
limited root access using the 'su' or 'sudo' account.
Not su, because you need the root password for that.
|
Geez Joe, did you fail to read the rest of the post? As where I wrote:
]]I (obviously) don't use Xandros, but understand that such access is made
]]using the 'sudo' command. If you are using some GUI desktop, they may
]]have their own front-end (helper) such as 'kdesu' in KDE, and 'gksudo'
]]in GNOME. 'su' is probably installed, but not usable without the root
]]password.
Hmmm
Old guy |
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Joe Zeff
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:20 am Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:42:34 -0500, ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld
(Moe Trin) wrote:
| Quote: | Geez Joe, did you fail to read the rest of the post?
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Actually, I did miss that. Thanx. It later occured to me that a
little bit of guru magic at boot time would probably get you either a
root password, or at least, an account with root privileges. Of
course, if you know enough to do that, you probably wouldn't be using
that distro.
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
Debating unix flavors in the context of anything Microsoft is like
talking about which ice cream flavor tastes least like sawdust with
turpentine sauce.
http://www.lasfs.info http://www.zeff.us |
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Moe Trin
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:34 am Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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On Sun, 16 Mar 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.help, in article
<lk3rt31lnh8pe7h3kc1emilda41ggvb9l6@4ax.com>, Joe Zeff wrote:
| Quote: | Actually, I did miss that. Thanx. It later occured to me that a
little bit of guru magic at boot time would probably get you either a
root password, or at least, an account with root privileges. Of
course, if you know enough to do that, you probably wouldn't be using
that distro.
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Actually, the usual solution with this type of crippled system is
to use the su/sudo/kdesu/gksudo tool to set the root password. But
again, this implies a somewhat higher knowledge level.
Old guy |
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George Nole
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:26 pm Post subject: Re: TELNET client. How? (new to Linux). |
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Thank you all. I have not tried anything yet.
I will read the comp.os.linux.misc and comp.os.linux.setup
as suggested.
Regards,
George. |
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