Remote Login: TELNET
and SSH
S D Patil, RGIT, Mumbai
[email protected] OBJECTIVES:
To introduce the TELNET protocol and show how it implements
local and remote login.
To discuss options and sub-options used in TELNET and how
they are negotiated.
To define out-of-band signaling in TELNET.
To define different modes of operations in TELNET.
To introduce SSH as an alternative to TELNET.
To show how different components of SSH are combined to
provide a secure connection over an insecure TCP connection.
To discuss port-forwarding in SSH and how it can be used to
provide security for other applications.
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TELNET
• An abbreviation for TErminaL NETwork.
• The standard TCP/IP protocol for virtual terminal
service as proposed by ISO.
• Enables the establishment of a connection to a
remote system in such a way that
• the local terminal appears to be a terminal at the
remote system.
• TELNET: general-purpose client-server
application program.
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Topics Discussed in the Section
Concepts
Time-Sharing Environment
Network Virtual Terminal (NVT)
Embedding
Options and Suboption Negotiation
Controlling the Server
Out-of-Band Signaling
Escape Character
Modes of Operation
User Interface
Security Issue
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Local login
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Remote login
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Concept of NVT
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Format of data and control characters
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An example of embedding
• Telnet uses only one TCP connection
• Server: well known port 23
• Client : an ephemeral port
• Same connection is used for sending data and control cha
• Embedding control the character in the data stream
• Distinguishing them IAC : interpret as control is used
• User want a server to display a file on a remote computer
cat file1 cat filea name is mistyped
cat filea<backspace>1
c a t f i l e a IAC EC 1
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TELNET Options
• TELNET lets the client and server negotiate options before or
during the use of the service.
• Options are extra features available to a user with a more
sophisticated terminal.
• Users with simpler terminals can use default features.
• Some control characters discussed previously are used to
define options.
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TELNET Option Negotiation
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Offer to enable an option
WILL
Will I enable the option?
DO or DONT
Do (or don’t) enable the option
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Request to enable an option
DO
Do enable the option
WILL or WONT
I will (won’t) enable the option
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Offer to disable an option
WONT
I won’t use the option any more
DONT
Don’t use it
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Request to disable an option
DONT
Don’t use the option any more
WONT
I won’t
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Example 20.1
• Figure shows an example of option negotiation.
• In this example, the client wants the server to echo
each character sent to the server.
• In other words, when a character is typed at the
user keyboard terminal,
• it goes to the server and is sent back to the
screen of the user before being processed.
• The echo option is enabled by the server because it
is the server
• that sends the characters back to the user
terminal.
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Example 20.1 Echo option
• Therefore, the client should request from the server the
enabling of the option using DO.
• The request consists of three characters: IAC,
DO, and ECHO.
• The server accepts the request and enables the option.
• It informs the client by sending the three-character
approval: IAC, WILL, and ECHO.
Do enable the echo option
1 ECHO DO IAC
IAC WILL ECHO 2
I will enable the echo option
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• TELNET: Symmetric option Negotiation
• Suboption Negotiation
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Example of sub-option negotiation
I will enable the terminal option
1 Terminal type WILL IAC
Do enable terminal option
IAC DO Terminal type 2
Set the terminal type to “VT”
3 SE IAC ‘T’ ‘V’ Terminal type SB IAC
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Controlling the TELNET Server
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Example of interrupting an application program
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Out-of-band signaling
• To make control characters effective in special situations,
TELNET uses out-of-band signaling.
• In out-of-band signaling, the control characters are
preceded by IAC and are sent to the remote process.
Data DM IP IAC Data
Kept Discarded
Urgent pointer
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Two different interruptions
• A character typed by the user is normally sent to the server.
• However, sometimes the user wants characters interpreted
by the client instead of the server.
• In this case, the user can use an escape character, normally
Ctrl+] (shown as ^]).
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TELNET Modes of Operation
Three Modes
Default Mode
Echoing is done by clients
After sending whole line to server wait for GA from server
to go the next line
Half duplex communication hence obsolete
Character Mode
Full duplex comm TCP
Echoing of Character is delayed due to Tt is long
Create overhead as more TCP segments are sent
Line Mode:
superior to both.
Line editing is done by the client, then sent to server,
full duplex, without GA from server
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Example 20.2
In this example, we use the default mode to show the concept and
its deficiencies even though it is almost obsolete today.
The client and the server negotiate the terminal type and terminal
speed and then the server checks the login and password of the
user (see Figure 20.15).
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Example 20.2 Default Mode
GO AHEAD 1
2 WILL TERMINAL TYPE
DO TERMINAL TYPE 3
GO AHEAD 4
5 WILL TERMINAL SPEED
DONT TERMINAL SPEED 6
Login: 7
GO AHEAD 8
9 forouzan
Password: 10
GO AHEAD 11
12 XXXXX
GO AHEAD 13
14 cp file1 file2
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Example 20.3
In this example, we show how the client switches to the character
mode.
This requires that the client request the server to enable the
SUPPRESS GO AHEAD and ECHO options (see Figure 20.16).
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Example 20.3Character Mode
GO AHEAD 1
2 DO SUPPRESS GO AHEAD
WILL SUPPRESS GO AHEAD 3
4 DO ECHO
WILL ECHO 5
Login: 6
7 f
f 8
9 o
o 10
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USER INTERFACE
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TELNET Security Issue
TELNET suffers from security problems.
Although TELNET requires a login name
and password (when exchanging text),
often this is not enough.
A microcomputer connected to a
broadcast LAN can easily eavesdrop
using snooper software and
capture a login name and the corresponding
password (even if it is encrypted).
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SECURE SHELL (SSH)
• Another popular remote login application program
is Secure Shell (SSH).
• uses TCP as the underlying transport protocol,
• more secure than telnet
• provides more services than TELNET.
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Topics Discussed in the Section
Versions
• Two version but totally incompatible
• SSH-1 is deprecated, security flaws
• SSH-2
Components
Port Forwarding
Format of the SSH Packet
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What is Secure Shell ?
Powerful, convenient approach to protecting
communications on a computer network
Provides a secure channel for data transmission
Not a command interpreter
Provides a secure pipe to open up a command
interpreter
Supports secure remote logins, secure remote command
execution, secure file transfers
Has a client server architecture – SSH server program
and client program
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SSH : Features
Privacy : via strong end-to-end encryption- DES, IDEA,
Blowfish
Integrity : via 32 bit Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC-32)
Authentication : server via server’s host key,
client usually via password or public key
Authorization : controlled at a server wide level or per account
basis
Forwarding : encapsulating another TCP based service such as
Telnet within an SSH session
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Components of SSH
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SSH: Port forwarding
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SSH packet format
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Security Mechanism
Establishing the Secure Connection
The client initiates the connection by sending a request to the TCP
port of the SSH server
Server reveals it's SSH protocol version to the client
If the client and server decide their versions are compatible, the
connection proceeds
SSH server sends the following to the client - host key, the server
key, a list of supported encryption, compression and authentication
methods, and a sequence of eight random bytes
Client checks identity of server by using the host key against known
hosts database
Client generates a session key and double encrypts it using the host
key & server key
Client sends encrypted session key along with check bytes and
acceptable algorithm
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Authentication
Server then decrypts the encrypted session key it received
Server sends a confirmation encrypted with this session key
Client receives confirmation, confirms server authentication
Client Authentication usually either by Password
Authentication or Public key Authentication
Server confirms client authorization
Generates a 256 bit random challenge, encrypts it with
clients public key, and sends to client
Client decrypts challenge, generates a hash value with a
session identifier (commonly generated random string at
beginning of session), and sends to server
Server generates hash, if both match, session is
authenticated
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