Turn on telnet server on Debian Linux

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Q. How do I install and turn on telnet server on Debian Linux VPS Server?

A. I don’t recommend using telnet at all on VPS or any other Linux / UNIX server. Telnet transfers all data including passwords in clear text format. It is recommended that you use ssh which is installed by default.

Use ssh and connect to remote server called boo.myvps.com, enter:
ssh user@boo.myvps.com
ssh root@boo.myvps.com
ssh root@server-ip-address

In case you still need telnet, type the following two commands (not recommended
# apt-get install telnetd
# /etc/init.d/inetd restart
$ telnet server-ip-address

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

11 comment

  1. I did the steps given here but the telnet does not seem to be up and running. I am using DSL (Dam Small Linux). It gives me connection refused on the other linux system.

  7. Please note that these instructions are specifically for installing and running telnet SERVER. Based on the comments here, some of you are looking for the telnet CLIENT. If you need just the telnet client, try:

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install telnet

  9. i tried gettin Telnet on my linux this is what i got, root@kali:~# telnet apt-get install telnetd
    Usage: telnet [-4] [-6] [-8] [-E] [-L] [-a] [-d] [-e char] [-l user]
    [-n tracefile] [ -b addr ] [-r] [host-name [port]]
    what should i do next?

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