To access a Cisco device using telnet, you first need to enable remote login. Cisco devices usually supports 16 concurrent virtual terminal sessions, so the first command usually looks like this:
HOSTNAME(config)line vty 0 15
To enable remote login, the login command is used from the virtual terminal session mode:
HOSTNAME(config-vty)login
Next, you need to define a password. This is done using the password command from the virtual terminal session mode:
HOSTNAME(config-vty)password PASSWORD
Let’s try this on a real router. First, we will try to access the router without enabling telnet on a device:
R1#telnet 10.0.0.1 Trying 10.0.0.1 ...Open [Connection to 10.0.0.1 closed by foreign host]
As you can see above, we can not access a Cisco device using telnet before setting up the password. Let’s do that:
R1#(config)#line vty 0 15 R1#(config-line)#password cisco R1#(config-line)#login
Now, let’s try to access our device:
R1#telnet 10.0.0.1 Trying 10.0.0.1 ...Open User Access Verification Password:
This time, because telnet was configured on the device, we have successfully telnetted to the device.
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