Telnet is a network protocol used to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. While Telnet has largely been replaced by more secure protocols like SSH, it can still be useful for certain network diagnostics and management tasks. In macOS, Telnet is not included by default starting from macOS High Sierra, but it can still be installed and used. This article will guide you through the process of installing and using Telnet on macOS, and will also suggest some alternatives for more secure communications.

Examples:

1. Installing Telnet on macOS

   Since Telnet is not included by default, you need to install it using Homebrew, a popular package manager for macOS. If you don't have Homebrew installed, you can install it by running the following command in the Terminal:

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

   Once Homebrew is installed, you can install Telnet by running:

   brew install telnet

2. Using Telnet

   After installation, you can use Telnet to connect to a remote server. For example, to connect to a server at example.com on port 23, you would use the following command:

   telnet example.com 23

   This will open a Telnet session to the specified server, where you can interact with the remote system.

3. Common Telnet Commands

   • Open a connection:

     telnet [hostname] [port]

   • Close a connection: Within a Telnet session, you can close the connection by pressing Ctrl+] to get to the Telnet command prompt, and then typing:

     quit

   • Send a command: Simply type the command and press Enter.

4. Alternatives to Telnet

   For more secure communications, consider using SSH (Secure Shell), which encrypts the data transferred between your computer and the remote server. SSH is included by default in macOS. To connect to a remote server using SSH, use the following command:

   ssh username@example.com

   This will establish a secure connection to the remote server, where you can run commands securely.