WEIRD: telnet

[Bob Johnson]

On Sunday 13 February 2005 09:53 am, Fafa Diliha Romanova wrote:
> what's with this badly written error message?
>
> # telnet localhost:61
> localhost:21: hostname nor servname provided, or not known

It means it tried to look up localhost:61 and couldn't make sense out of it.  
I believe "servname" is intended to mean "service name", i.e. the port number 
or name. 
>
> have somebody compromised my telnet maybe?

No.  The correct syntax is "telnet localhost 61" or "telnet localhost ni-mail" 
where "ni-mail" is the name of the service that is officially registered to 
run on port 61.

"man telnet" might also be informative.

- Bob

>
> thanks,
> fafa