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Current Directory: /usr/share/doc/telnet
Viewing File: /usr/share/doc/telnet/README
This is netkit-telnet-0.17 for Linux.

This package updates netkit-telnet-0.16.

If you're reading this off a CD, go right away and check the net
archives for later versions and security fixes. As of this writing the
home site for NetKit is
	ftp://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/Networking/netkit

Contents:
	telnet		Client for telnet protocol
	telnetd		Daemon for telnet protocol

Note: These programs do not provide encryption or strong
authentication of network connections. As such, their use for remote
logins is discouraged. The "ssh" protocol and package can be used
instead.

Requires:
	Working compiler, libc, and kernel, and a recent version of
	ncurses or libtermcap.

	Note that while telnet uses the C++ compiler, it neither requires
	nor uses libstdc++.

Security:
	This release contains no security fixes relative to 
	netkit-telnet-0.16. However, versions prior to that should not be 
	used.

	Telnetd is evil legacy code and is not trustworthy - do not
	run it unless you absolutely need it.

	This release contains experimental login wrapper code to permit
	running telnetd as a non-root user. This code is not built by 
	default. Look in the "telnetlogin" directory and the telnetlogin 
	man page contained therein for more information.

Old kernels:
	If you have an old kernel, you may need to apply the enclosed
	pty-hang patch to it. I don't unfortunately know at the moment 
	which kernel versions need the patch, but current 2.0.x and
	2.2.x should be ok without it.

	The following test will tell you if you need the patch: telnet
	to localhost, do "cat >/dev/null", and type 256 characters
	without any newlines. If you need the patch, telnetd will hang
	completely at this point. If it refuses to accept more input,
	but does not hang, you do not need the patch.

Installation:
	Do "./configure --help" and decide what options you want. The
	defaults should be suitable for most Linux systems. Then run
	the configure script.

	Do "make" to compile.
	Then (as root) do "make install".

	Save a backup copy of any mission-critical program in case the
	new one doesn't work, and so forth. We warned you.

	If you get gcc warnings from files in /usr/include, they are
	due to problems in your libc, not netkit. (You may only see
	them when compiling netkit because netkit turns on a lot of
	compiler warnings.)

DEC CC:
	The DEC compiler for the Alpha is now freely available. This
	is a much better compiler with gcc, that is, it generates much
	better code. If you have the DEC compiler, you can explicitly
	use the DEC compiler instead of gcc by configuring like this:

		./configure --with-c-compiler=ccc

	It is known to generate spurious warnings on some files. Also,
	some headers from some versions of glibc confuse it; that may
	prevent	netkit from working. Other problems should be reported
	as bugs.

	Note that there is no corresponding C++ compiler, so telnet
	will be compiled with g++ anyway.

Bugs:
	Please make sure the header files in /usr/include match the
	libc version installed in /lib and /usr/lib. If you have weird
	problems this is the most likely culprit.

	Also, before reporting a bug, be sure you're working with the
	latest version.

	If something doesn't compile for you, fix it and send diffs.
	If you can't, send the compiler's error output.

	If it compiles but doesn't work, send as complete a bug report as 
	you can. Patches and fixes are welcome, as long as you describe 
	adequately what they're supposed to fix. Please, one patch per
	distinct fix. Please do NOT send the whole archive back or
	reindent the source.

	Be sure to send all correspondence in e-mail to the netkit address.
	Postings to netnews or mailing lists will not be seen due to the 
	enormous volume. Also, anything that doesn't get filed in the bug
	database is quite likely to end up forgotten.

	Please don't report known bugs (see the BUGS file(s)) unless you
	are including fixes. :-)

	Mail should be sent to: netbug@ftp.uk.linux.org


Early in April 2000, a hacker broke into the machine that was hosting
the netkit bug database for me and trashed it. Unfortunately, it seems
backups hadn't gotten done for a while, so three months of mail (since
mid-January) was lost. So, if you sent something and didn't hear back,
or you sent something, heard back, but the changes failed to appear in
this release (unlikely but possible) - please resend.

Please see http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~dholland/computers/netkit.html
if you are curious why it was so long between the 0.10 and 0.16 releases.

Future plans for netkit maintenance are still up in the air, but in the
meantime new releases will still appear from time to time. I don't have
a whole lot of cycles to spare to work on netkit, so things are likely
to continue to be fairly slow.

David A. Holland
23 July 2000
F1l3 Manager
