HOW TO: Turn On the Interix Telnet Daemon (324077)

SUMMARY

The Interix subsystem provides a fully POSIX compliant environment that runs as a native subsystem in the Windows kernel. It includes more than 350 UNIX utilities, and includes an inetd daemon to handle a variety of network protocols, including the Telnet protocol. Services for UNIX also includes a Win32-based telnet service. By default, the Win32-based telnet service is turned on, and the Interix one is turned off.

The Win32 telnet service uses a default shell of Cmd.exe, while the Interix telnet daemon uses user's default shell, either /bin/ksh or /bin/csh. Because only a single telnet server can listen on port 23, the telnet port, if you want to run the Interix telnetd, you must first turn off the Win32 based telnet server, and then turn on and start the Interix one.

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Turn Off the Windows Telnet Service

Services for UNIX installs the Telnet service (Tlntsvr.exe) as part of its typical installation. Before you can turn on the Interix telnetd, you must first stop, and then turn off the Windows Telnet service.

To turn off the Windows Telnet service:

1. Log on to the Windows server with an administrative level account.
2. Open the Services tool on Windows NT 4.0, or the Services MMC in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
3. Double-click the Telnet service.
4. Stop the Telnet service, and then change the startup type to either Manual or Disabled.

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Turn On the Interix Telnetd

The Interix subsystem includes a full telnet daemon (server) that is started as part of the inet daemon (inetd). The inet daemon is controlled by the /Etc/Inetd.conf file, which includes the necessary line for starting the telnet daemon, but the line is commented out. You must first edit the Inetd.conf file, and then force the inet daemon to re-read the file.

NOTE: You must only edit the Inetd.conf file by using a pure ASCII text editor. Interix includes the vi editor which is a pure ASCII editor.

To turn on the Interix telnet daemon:

1. Log on to the Windows server with an administrative-level account.
2. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Services for UNIX, and then click Korn Shell to open an Interix Korn shell window.
3. Edit the /Etc/Inetd.conf file:

   $ vi /etc/inetd.conf

4. The vi command sequence for the edit is:

   /#telnet
   d/telnet
   :wq

5. Find the Process ID for the inet daemon, and then send a kill -1 command to that process. This makes the daemon re-read its configuration file that you previously edited. To do so, use the kill -1 $(ps -e | grep ' inetd$'| tr -s " " | cut -f2 -d " ") command. This causes the inet daemon to reprocess its configuration file without stopping the inetd process. You can now use telnet to connect to the computer, and you can connect to the Interix subsystem.

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