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1
When I pinged my mailserver from the command prompt using:
telnet mail.mydomain.com 25
I got the error Telnet is not a recognized command. I looked for a workaround and then found that Telnet was unchecked by default in Windows. Once i checked it, it started working.
ACP
Posted 2010-02-19T06:18:57.117
Reputation: 1 239
19
TELNET communicates with the peer (telnet server) in clear text.
This is a security hazard compared to say the SSH connect.
To this end, the telnet client on windows is disabled by default.
This often comes as a surprise and many sites describe the steps to get it working,
you seem to have found them already :)
For normal purposes, it would be a better option to use SSH (PuTTY or freeSSHd if you want to connect to a Windows machine).
nik
Posted 2010-02-19T06:18:57.117
Reputation: 50 788
13My favorite part is that they disabled telnet and didn't give me ssh. D: – Rob – 2011-10-21T15:31:56.040
5
When wanting to query in clear text an SMTP server, to my knowledge, there isn't any simpler way to do it than Telnet. [SSH can't be used for this]
In this case I advise you to enable telnet or to use something like SMTPDiag.
user26604
Posted 2010-02-19T06:18:57.117
Reputation: 111
@simtris, I appreciate the ease of working with TELNET to talk with an SMTP server. I also agree that enabling TELNET is a good idea to connect with the SMTP server as the OP wants to. I see the question as a query on the reasons for something as simple as the telnet client needing to be enabled. Do you see a different question or think my answer deviates from the point in discussion? – nik – 2010-02-19T11:53:11.547
@nik : U right, his question was about the "disapearance" of the telnet client. You anwer the part "security", I addead the part "usefull" :) – user26604 – 2010-02-21T10:50:47.713
@simtris, fair enough :) – nik – 2010-02-21T13:20:37.720
Since this question was referenced recently by answers to other questions, I have edited this answer to remove commentary on other answers (it's author lacked rep to make comments at the time). – RedGrittyBrick – 2011-10-21T15:30:31.330
2I don't know the exact answer, but I heard it was something to do with security. – Sasha Chedygov – 2010-02-19T06:20:32.963