Providing Telnet and SSH access is a fundamental part of our philosopy of giving you full control over your virtual server. This allows you to have a dedicated presence on the Internet and maintain it remotely via a low cost dial-up connection. By using a Telnet or SSH application, you can connect to your Virtual Server from anywhere in the world, and log in to your server as if you were sitting right in front it.

Choosing a Telnet Application

There are quite a few telnet client applications available, many of which are free. For example, the Windows 95/98/NT operating systems are shipped with a telnet client included (found at "c:\windows\telnet.exe" and "c:\winnt\system32\telnet.exe" respectively). This telnet application is simple and functional, but not quite as flexible and friendly as our recommended choice TeraTerm Pro developed by T. Teranishi.

For the Macintosh OS, we recommend NSCA Telnet developed by the Software Development Group at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Unix users can use the built-in telnet client software shipped with the operating system.

Choosing a SSH Client Application

SSH (or Secure Shell) is a program that can be used to log into a remote machine (your Virtual Server) and provide secure encrypted communications between your Virtual Server and your local computer. All of the commands you would use in a Telnet client, you can use in an SSH client. The only difference is that the communication is made via encypted channels to and from your Virtual Server. The OpenSSH web site lists several SSH clients for Windows and Mac.

Connecting To Your Virtual Server

Once you have chosen a Telnet or SSH client application, connecting to your Virtual Server is extremely simple. Although telnet and SSH client applications vary in their exact configuration, most of them will simply require you to specify a "remote host". Your remote host is your Virtual Server, so you would specify your domain name or IP address.

Once you are connected, you will be prompted for your login name and login password. Your login name and login password are listed in your virtual server activation notice. After the login process is successful, you will have gained access to your Virtual Server and can now issue commands at the command prompt. If you are not familiar with UNIX, you can learn some simple UNIX commands and use them with confidence.