telnet not working

[JKlebs9225]

I have what I think is a strange situation. I went to the library and a book caught my eye about setting up a linux intranet server, so I checked it out. I have two computers, a desktop, running slackware 8.1, and a laptop running windows millennium. I also have a router and a cable internet connection. I tried to run DHCP, and I think it worked. When I type 192.168.1.100 into mozilla on the laptop, I get the "it worked" apache webpage from the linux computer, but when I try to connect to the linux comp. using telnet (or Tera Term Pro), it always says "could not open a connection to 192.168.1.100". The thing that is the most interesting thing to me is that when using cygnus windows on the laptop, I can connect to the linux comp using ssh. I can also ping each machine with the other and it works every time. My question is why can't telnet connect to it when the connection is obviously recognized? I do have one theory about it, so here goes. When using Tera Term Pro from the laptop it says to connect to port 23, and I was wondering if that port was even open, so I ran 'nmap 127.0.0.1' on the linux comp and found that that port was not open. I don't know what that port is or how to open it though. Anybody have any ideas? The help is greatly appreciated!
-Jason

[chort]

telnetd is not configured on your Linux box--this is a GOOD thing! Telnet is an inherently insecure protocol because all data is passed in clear-text. You should use SSH only as a remote login (no rlogin, no telnet, no rsh).

Download PuTTY (ftp://ftp.chiark.greenend.org.uk/users/sgtatham/putty-latest/x86/putty-0.53b-installer.exe) and configure it to make an SSH connection to your Linux box. The PuTTY main website is at www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ You can find a local mirror from there.

[JThundley]

I second that motion, it's currently how I operate and I don't think anything could be better :D

[JKlebs9225]

wow, that putty program is a lot better than cygnus windows, it goes a lot faster and has more features. Now, if I may, I have another question. I was reading another post on this forum about hosting a website. I was wondering about that also so I went to dyndns.org and set up a site called *.jklebs.dyndns.org. When I type the site into a browser window I get a message asking for a user name and password for "Linksys BEFSR41/BEFSR11/BEFSRU31". I do have a linksys router model number BEFSR41 that the two computers are connected to, how do I get around this and go straight to the linux computer? Thanks!
-Jason

[chort]

You need to change the port that your router is listening on for the administrative interface. You should also make it unavailable via the external IP address. There should be a text box to specify a different port number (pick anything which is not already defined in /etc/services) and there should be a checkbox which says something to the effect of "allow connections from the Internet" or something like that. Take the check mark off (you don't want people on the Internet to be able to connect to your router and change the settings).

Now you need to make a port forwarding rule on your router to point port 80/TCP to your Linux box's IP address. Now edit (or create) /var/www/html/index.html on your Linux box. Presto, you have a website. Users from the outside should be able to visit it via http://www.jklebs.dyndns.org (the *. in front of your domain means they can pick any hostname and it will be redirect to that IP, for instance they could use oogabooga.jklebs.dyndns.org and it would still go to your website).

PS The Cygnus shell for Windows does a ton more than just ssh. It's an (almost) fully functioning Linux shell on your Windows box. If you're very clever, you can even get it to run Xwindows within Windows, or setup an ssh daemon. Those features have been elusive to me, but it is very handy for using grep/awk/sort/uniq etc on text files on your Windows box.

[JKlebs9225]

uhh, a checkbox and a textbox? Where do I get to these? I'm guessing there is a configuration window in KDE somewhere that you are talking about, but I don't know what it is. Ohh, and how to you make a port forwarding rule on your router? Thanks for all the help :)

[chort]

I'm talking about your router configuration web page.

[sharth]

http://192.168.1.1

the default is no username and a password of admin

[JKlebs9225]

Router configuration webpage?? I honestly had no idea that such a thing existed! Thanks for the tips folks. I have it up and working now :-)

[JThundley]

Like Sharth said: "the default is no username and a password of admin"

I recommend that you immediately change the default password on your router since it sounds like you haven't done so already: "I honestly had no idea that such a thing existed!"

:)

[sharth]

/me still uses the default :p But its only internet network accesible.

[JThundley]

Originally posted by sharth
/me still uses the default :p But its only internet network accesible.

You mean it's only accessable to your network and not the internet? In theory, an attacker could compromise your system and then maybe use links or something to access the router from your computer. hmmmm.... Now I'm paranoid.