Telnet Server Concepts

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Concepts

Telnet is a member of the TCP/IP family of protocols, and it allows a user to establish a remote session on a server. The protocol supports only alphanumeric terminals -- that is, it does not support mice and other pointing devices, nor does it support graphical user interfaces. Instead, all commands must be entered at the command line.

The Telnet protocol provides very little security. In a Telnet session that does not use NTLM authentication, all data, including passwords, is transmitted between client and server in plaintext. Because of this limitation, as well as the general recommendation against allowing untrusted users access to security-critical servers, you should run Telnet Server only on computers that store no sensitive data.

This section contains information about: