Using telnet as a tool for troubleshooting connection problems on hosted Voyager servers

Question

Can I use telnet to troubleshoot connection problems on my hosted Voyager server?

This may also be applicable to local (self-hosted) servers as well.

Answer

Telnet can be used to check whether or not a port on the Voyager server is open to you.

To use it, you need to know the IP address or hostname (typically using IP address is preferred in this situation) of your Voyager server.

You also need to know which port you want to check (see this Article: Network ports used by Voyager )

You can use telnet with any port.

Note that you may need to enable telnet on your workstation (see this Article:  How to enable telnet for troubleshooting when CMD reports: "'telnet' is not recognized as an internal or external command")

Once you have telnet enabled, follow these steps:

1. Open a command prompt
2. Type in "telnet <IP ADDRESS OF SERVER PC> <PORT>" and press enter.
3. For example, you would type “telnet 123.45.67.89 1521”
4. If a blank screen appears then the port is open, and the test is successful.
5. If you receive a connecting... message or an error message then something is blocking that port.  It could be the Windows firewall, a third party firewall like your anti-virus software, or an institutional hardware firewall between the workstation and the server.

Additional Information

Your campus may prohibit you from using telnet.  Check with your I.T. Department.

• Article last edited: 01-Aug-2019