Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!MSU.BITNET!08071TCP From: 08071TCP@MSU.BITNET (Doug Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: telnet... Message-ID: <8807072010.AA28332@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 7 Jul 88 15:08:37 GMT References:Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 30 Since Bill Westfield asked for flames: :-) >I really wish telnet had a "DON'T TELNET-ANYMORE" option. Most telnet >server/client interactions happen at connection startup, and then they >stay the same until the connection closed. Unfortunately, since telnet >options can occur anywhere within the data stream, both telnet processes >have to carefully examine every character to see whether it might be an >IAC. I wish a host could set the connection up the way that it wanted, >and then say "that's it, no more telnet negotiations from me". (Of course, >this would make the most sense in binary mode, so that you would not have >to worry about end-of-line nonsense either.) > >Any comments? Why use Telnet if you don't want it? It certainly isn't that difficult to keep scanning for IAC, and Telnet is certainly not a very complex protocol. And you always have the option of rejecting any changes in options if you don't want to deal with them. In what circumstances would you want to use this feature? In a general interactive environment, it would seem like you'd want to keep your options open. What concerns me, though, is that some Telnet implementations apparently assume that no more options will be negotiated after the startup, and then stop working when they encounter software that sends them, such as echo toggles for password suppression. Doug Nelson Michigan State University Computer Lab