Cisco Routers for the Desperate, 2nd Edition

Remote Router Access

Cisco routers support a variety of methods for administration over the network. The most common methods of accessing a router are telnet and SSH.

Telnet was the standard method to get a command prompt on a remote system for many, many years. Unfortunately, everything sent over telnet is unencrypted. For twenty-odd years this didn't matter a great deal, but today's Internet is much less friendly. A hostile Internet user between your computer and your router can capture your router passwords and do anything they like to your router. If you must use telnet, be certain you only use it from a trusted network local to the router and not over the public Internet. Both Unix and Windows include a command-line telnet client. If at all ...