Configuring and Managing MPE/iX Internet Services (August 2002)

Chapter 3

Telnet Service

Implementation Differences

The implementation of Telnet on the HP e3000 does not use a separate telnetd server file similar to the

tftpd or bootpd server. Instead, Telnet server functionality is provided by code that resides in NL.PUB.SYS

on version C.60.00 of MPE/iX. As a result, the last column of the Telnet entry in the inetd configuration file is

the word “internal.” For example:

telnet stream tcp nowait MANAGER.SYS internal

By contrast, the entry for the BOOTP server in the inetd configuration file shows “bootpd” in the last column

because the BOOTP server is not implemented internally. For example:

bootps dgram udp wait MANAGER.SYS /SYS/NET/BOOTPD bootpd

The implementation of the Telnet server as an internal program concerns you as system manager, in the

following two ways:

• When you issue a LISTFILE command for NET.SYS, you will not see a telnetd server file. You do,

however, edit the services file and the inetd configuration file to enable Telnet on your system as you do

for the other Internet Services.

• Any security checking the host does before it initiates a Telnet session for the requesting client must be

handled by the Internet daemon’s internal security. Specifically, this means that system programmers

cannot write “wrappers,” programs that wrap around the Telnet entry in the configuration file to force a

separate security-checking program to run on that socket to determine if the connection can or should be

established. Instead, you use the inetd security file to allow or deny specific nodes Telnet access to your

system. For information, read Chapter 2, “Internet Daemon.”