Ports and Telnet

mar|<

i try to learn all i can while on the net, and always feel so dumb coming up against terms i dont recognise two of these are telnet(application?/command?) and ports, ive looked at wikipedia but still havnt quite got my head around it. can anyone explain to me what these are and how they are used? is it possible to connect to my pc at home from my school computer using these and to what extent? do they differ in windows to linux, or any other OS??

any information would be great, thanks

Rollo Tamasi

Hi mark, i'm not an expert on this..i'm sure you'll get better help than this...

Your computer has about 6000 ports on it. The ports are used for communication across a network. Port 80 is used for web browsing, port 20 & 21 is used for FTP....and so on.., there are loads others.

Telenet allows to remotely access servers/pcs but it ain't a secure connection from what i remember. You can be tracked easily and if you use it there is a chance someone could find out your password & username to log onto your home pc if you use a remote application. Best to use Putty, thats got good encrytion.

You can use a program such as pc anywhere to connect to your pc from college! Thats probably your best bet

irlrobins

From google:

Telnet is a user command using TCP/IP protocols to access a computer remotely. To have access to that computer, you must have permission, meaning you must authenticate to the system with a valid username and password. When you are connected to the network using telnet, you can enter commands and they will be executed as if the were being entered directly onto the server console.

irlrobins

mar|< wrote:

is it possible to connect to my pc at home from my school computer using these and to what extent?

Yes in theory. You would have to have your home PC switched on and connected to the internet. You will then need some sort of client/server setup to allow you to connect to home PC (i.e. PC Anywhere or SSH server running on home PC and PC Anywhere or SSH client on school PC to connect to server).

You might find however that your school/college has a firewall in place that will block any attempt to access outside servers.

Why do you want to connect to your Home PC from school and what would you want to do with your remote connection? Might help to point you in the right direction....

Malafus

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

Your computer has about 6000 ports on it. The ports are used for communication across a network. Port 80 is used for web browsing, port 20 & 21 is used for FTP....and so on.., there are loads others.

Hmm, a little low there - try "About 65535 ports".
Basically, it's just a number assigned to a packet of information to tell it where to go.

mar|<

thanks for the replys so far, guys. nothing important really, just often feel the need to get at files i have at home while working in school and im never responsible enough to put them online, but really its more personal interest. is there a way to transfer these without pc anywhere or such programs, as they cost money afaik.

irlrobins

you could set up a ssh server as I say. But its prob a lil beyond your grasp if you're a newbie to computers and networking.

Rollo Tamasi

Malafus wrote:

Hmm, a little low there - try "About 65535 ports".

woops, forgot the last "0" and the odd numbers of course

Mr. Presentable

I suppose you could use www.yousendit.com for short term. They allow files up to 1gb, all you would need is an e-mail address at college (could be Gmail or whatever). They describe it as allowing e-mail with an attachment of 1gb, but that's misleading - they send a link to the file on their server to the recipient address and you download it. I think you are allowed 7 downloads over 25 days (or 25 dls over 7 days...).

mar|<

yeah, seems a little beyond me, but il study it further.
yousendit will be usefull, thanks once again