Christian de Larrinaga wrote on 03/12/2020 11:13:
there are times when having telnet to test a mail server / email address is helpful? Happy to have a better sweetie if you can suggest one
netcat is probably better for this because it opens up a raw socket and doesn't attempt to cook the transport layer, like telnet.
Telnet as an interactive remote login protocol is operationally obsolete. There are better alternatives and few credible reasons for new equipment / services to support it. There isn't an issue for existing service stacks to continue to support it on a discretionary basis if they want.
In any event, reclassifying a protocol as historic doesn't mean that the tools will disappear. It just means that as a protocol is at an evolutionary dead end.
It's ok to admit this sort of thing and not see it as a bad thing. The world moves on.
The same applies to finger except more so. And identd (rfc1413), chargen (rfc864), echo/udp (rfc862) and, honestly, cartloads of the earlier rfcs. If there were a gigantic bonfire of a bunch of these, I would be happy to supply the marshmallows.
Nick
