Telnet Time Trick

When you type in the telnet command we usually stop after the host identifier. When no port is specified telnet defaults to the telnet port #23. We can redirect however; port 13 is the daytime port (RFC 867). So to find out the system time of a remote system:


$ telnet 192.168.1.102 13
Trying 192.168.1.104…

Connected to sparc5-110.

Escape character is ‘^]’.

Mon Sep 26 14:16:29 2005

Connection closed by foreign host.
The screen may blank, the date/time stamp from the end host will be echoed, and a “Connection to host lost” message will be printed.