Marc Shapiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Does anyone know if there is a way to pass a parameter to a telnet session?
A mechanism exists for the "telnet" client to send arbitrary environment variables to the "telnetd" server. The Debian version of the client will send USER (if "-a" or "-l" is specified on the command line), PRINTER, and DISPLAY by default. It also sends TERM, though via a technically different mechanism. It can also be told, via an "environment export ..." command at the "telnet>" command prompt or in an /etc/telnetrc or .telnetrc file, to send other environment variables. The Debian version of the server, however, for security reasons, will only accept values set for USER, LOGNAME, DISPLAY, POSIXLY_CORRECT, and TERM. You can't overload USER, because that's the value the "-l" is sending, and you can't generally overload TERM because it undergoes some processing that changes its value to "unknown" if it isn't recognized. So, the easiest one to use (the one that the client sends by default and that the server accepts without question) is DISPLAY, so if you do: DISPLAY=format_harddisk telnet hostname -l username DISPLAY=destroy_universe telnet hostname -l username you're all set. The only caveat is that the value shouldn't start with ":" or "unix:" since that will result in the local hostname being stuck in there. > I have set up a user on one box that does not require a password to > log in. This is generally considered dangerous if the user's shell is an unrestricted shell such as Bash, even if you create a special-purpose ".bash_profile" to try and restrict the user's activities. For example, while Bash is reading ".bash_profile", if it receives a keyboard interrupt (i.e., a SIGINT signal), it will stop processing and drop the user to a shell prompt. Oops! -- Kevin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]