Many people who have Linux machines at home or at work still find them selves working on Windows computers at their desk. So how do you get into your Linux box from here. You need to use a terminal client to open a remote shell on your Linux PC. To do this your can use several different programs but the most common ones are telnet and SSH.
Telnet is a client/server that opens a terminal window on your Linux box from you Windows machine. This terminal lets you run commands from you workstation that execute on the LInux computer (for example edit a file, or restart a server). To use the windows telnet client, you simply click on \”Start\” -> \”Run\” and then type telnet you.host.name. After that you will be presented with a terminal window prompting you for a username and password. Once you log in, you are basically operating like you are sitting at the keyboard of your Linux machine.
Now the only problem with telnet is that all of the information that travels from one computer to the other is unencrypted. What that means is that if some hacker is tapping you computer line (called sniffing), they can capture your username and password as you type it. To overcome this problem, the use of a new client/server has been on the rise lately called SSH.
Putty and others
