[freebsd-questions] [freebsd-questions] root login with telnetd

[Howard Jones]

Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> so generalizing that "telnet and rsh is bad" is as stupid as telling 
> that oxygen is bad as it makes fires.
Well, that's true, but if you have the choice, there are better choices. 
You *can* hammer in nails with the butt of a gun, but there's a chance 
you'll somehow shoot yourself in the arm. A hammer doesn't have that risk.

There have been *many* problems over the years with rsh and telnet. 
rsh's security model comes from a time when people thought computers 
would never lie to each other. SSH does allow you to give only enough 
access, with the side-benefits (in your case) of compression and 
encryption. Even if you used ssh without those, the key-based 
authentication is still safer, and the code more modern and securely 
designed.