Purpose of Telnet Service

DS_SUPPORT · Post by **DS_SUPPORT** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:20 pm

Our IT Team has raised some security concerns about the information published by TELNET banner. They want to know
1) What is the purpose of Telnet Service, Why it is required for IBM Infosphere Server?
2) Can we disable the Telnet Service in the Server?

And My understanding on telnet Service is, it will be used by datastage server when some OS level commands has to be executed. In our project we dont have any such requirement to execute OS level commands. So is it safe to stop the Telnet Service on Datastage Server?

Please Confirm whether my understanding is correct or what is the purpose of telnet Server.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:55 pm

If the Engine tier is UNIX, as you have marked your post, there is no telnet service.

If the Engine tier is Windows, the telnet service exists because, historically, Windows did not have a telnet server - could not accept telnet connections.

DataStage itself does not use the telnet service at all. It is there to be used by humans who want a means to access the file system on the engine tier (formerly known as the DataStage server machine).

It is perfectly safe to stop the telnet service and to set its startup mode to manual. All you lose is the ability to establish a telnet connection by that means. However, since you're running version 8, you might also need to consider disabling the MKS Toolkit telnet daemon.

DS_SUPPORT · Post by **DS_SUPPORT** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:41 am

Thanks Ray