Using the network

Logging in to a remote machine

Suppose that while you are working on your machine, you need to edit a file on a machine called seattle. You can use the telnet(1tcp) program to log in to seattle.

Give the telnet command with the name of the other machine:

telnet seattle

When telnet connects to the other machine, it prompts for your user name and password on that machine so you can log in:

Trying... Connected to seattle. Escape character is '^]'.

You can do any kind of work at the command line on the other machine (such as use vi(1) for interactive editing) just as you would if you were working on a terminal directly connected to that machine. You cannot use icons or perform other graphics-oriented tasks on the remote machine, unless you set the DISPLAY environment variable to the local machine, (see ``Modifying the shell environment'') and enable remote X access (see xhost(X1M)).

When you are finished with your work, log out from the remote machine to end the remote terminal session and return to your local machine. If, for some reason, you cannot end a remote session normally, you can use the telnet escape character (<Ctrl>-]) to abort the session. (This escape character is not the same as the <Esc> key on your keyboard. To produce the telnet escape character, hold down the <Ctrl> key and type a closing square bracket). When you cannot log out from another machine normally, type <Ctrl>-] on a line by itself, and telnet displays its command prompt:

telnet>

Enter quit to disconnect from the remote machine and return to your local machine.

You might also need to use the telnet quit command if the machine you are trying to log in to is not available or if you ever try to log in to a remote machine that telnet does not know about (either you mistyped the machine name or the machine is not on your network). In either of these situations, instead of seeing a login prompt for the remote machine, you see an error message saying unknown host or Connection timed out followed by the telnet prompt. Enter quit to exit from telnet command mode.

Other commands are available from telnet command mode. Sometimes you might temporarily leave the remote session with the escape character to use some of telnet's advanced features; you can later return to the remote session without logging in again. If you enter ? at the telnet prompt, you see a list of all the telnet commands. The telnet(1tcp) manual page describes in detail how to use these commands.