Okay I've looked all around the net trying to find someone who has the same problem as me, and I have had no luck. This might be the case because I'm doing something wrong. I'm running a ssh2 server on my redhad box. so far the only luck I have had is when using the command "ssh localhost". that works just dandy. My problem occurs when I try to use telnet instead. I put in "telnet localhost 22" and my output is
"Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_3.4p1"

then, as soon as I push enter i get
"Protocol mismatch.
Connection closed by foreign host."

and I'm back to the prompt.
It seemed like it is half- way work there.... or not? Does this mean that I can't use telnet on a ssh sever? Also, if telnet is supposed to work on a ssh server would it still have all the security or would it be sending out unecrypted text just as it would from a telnet client to a telnet server?

Eventually when I get this all up and running, I hope to be able to remotely access my puter from elsewhere.

I'm sorry if this has been discussed before. If it has I couldn't find it. Please let me know if you need any additional information. Thanks in advance.

you can't use telnet and ssh together. pretty much all telnet does is open a socket connection to a host machine:port. your problem is that ssh is a specific protocol, and the telnet client doesn't know how to provide that.

you need to connect to your ssh daemon using an ssh client (ssh, slogin). telnet will simply not work (thank god). :-)

If you are trying to access your Linux box via SSH from a windows machine try putty.

thank you synkrm. I have a follow up.... I found this site that offers a ssh client written entirely in java.... I have my java up and running fine in mozilla. I can't seem to get it to connect to my server... I type in my local loopback , local loopback ip, and ip addresses and try it with diff ports.... can't seem to get it to work. Maybe this was designed for ssh1 instead of 2? If anyone can get this thing running could you give me some pointers? BTW, I'm really new to all the kind of stuff, so thanks for your patience

Where can I find this java SSH client so I can take a look at it?

sorry bout that, I had the address copied but forgot to paste it. http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/tef/ssh/

i've never used that client. though i don't really think i'd want to. putty works just fine for me. it's quick to download from my http server if i ever need an ssh client, no need to install it, and it has every feature i need.

so i'd go that route first before trying anything exceedingly complex.