Our Virtual Server System allows you to have a dedicated presence on the Internet and maintain it remotely via a low cost dial-up connection. Remote administration is one of the most powerful tools included as part of our Virtual Server System. By using a Telnet or SSH client, you can connect to your Virtual Server from anywhere in the world, and log in to your server as if you were sitting right in front it.

Choosing a Telnet Client
There are quite a few telnet clients available, many of which are free. For example, the Windows 95/NT operating systems are shipped with a telnet client included (found at "c:\windows\telnet.exe" and "c:\winnt\system32\telnet.exe" respectively). This telnet client is simple and functional, but not quite as flexible and friendly as CRT from Van Dyke Technologies, Inc.

For the Macintosh OS, we recommend NCSA Telnet written by the Software Development Group at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Unix users can use the built-in telnet client software shipped with the operating system.

There are also Java telnet applets that allow you to connect to your Virtual Server using just a web browser. Some of the many that are available include:

Choosing a SSH Client
SSH (or Secure Shell) is a program that can be used to log into a remote machine (your Virtual Server) and provide secure encrypted communications between your Virtual Server and your local computer. All of the commands you would use in a Telnet client, you can use in an SSH client. The only difference is that the communication is made via encypted channels to and from your Virtual Server. An excellent SSH client is SecureCRT. SecureCRT also supports telnet, serial, and other protocols.

Connecting To Your Virtual Server
Once you have chosen a Telnet or SSH client, connecting to your Virtual Server is extremely simple. Although telnet and SSH clients vary in their exact configuration, most of them will simply require you to specify a "remote host". Your remote host is your Virtual Server, so you would specify your domain name (or your temporary domain if applicable).

Once you are connected, you will be prompted for your login name and login password. You specified both your login name and login password when you ordered your Virtual Server. After the login process is successful, you will have gained access to your Virtual Server and can now issue commands at the command prompt. If you are not familiar with UNIX, you can learn some simple UNIX commands and use them with confidence.