Nokia E71 and E63 tips - shell or command line access using ssh (secure shell)

The Nokia E71 & E63 is a versatile phone for people that needs the business suite of application, e.g. email, messenger, documents & spreadsheet, camera and most importantly, the symbian platform. The symbian platform is widely used on mobile phones. Symbian's platform also have a wide variety of applications.

For *NIX system administration, shell access to the command line (using ssh) of the  servers are part of our life. Having to own Nokia E71 or E63 is one of the best thing as Putty is available on symbian platform. Putty is a symbian application that can connect to server using shell access or command line by ssh, which take advantage of the built-in QWERTY keyboard on Nokia E71 & E63. Putty also allow to use public key authentication, if the private key is installed on the phone or the memory card (mmc). It also allow to configure ssh (secure shell) client to connect to other ports then the default port 22.

ubuntu - firefox cannot resolve URL with telnet:// protocol

In Firefox, when clicking on a URL link with "telnet://", firefox browser would pop up an error message "Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (telnet) isn't associated with any program.". It is due to the browser have not register a helper application to run the URL link with "telnet://". Below are some simple steps to prepare firefox in Ubuntu using xterm to open the URL :

telnet - using telnet to test email server or send email (smtp pop 25) using telnet

telnet is a Swiss army knife for troubleshooting layer 7 application problem, especially useful on smtp & pop3 protocol.

Scenario 1 :
to test is our domain is being block by recipient domain, using telnet on our email server to send email on recipient email server.


Scenario 2 :
a quick test on error occurs sending email, using email client, such as thunderbird, apple mail, opera mail & others, using telnet.

telnet - using telnet to test email server or read email (pop port 110) using telnet

telnet has a lot of weakness compare to ssh. Most notably would be it transmits in plain text across the network, which everyone can look at it as long as one can tap into the line.  Still, it is very much useful in trouble shooting application layer problems, e.g. http, smtp, pop, ftp, irc & others.

This post attempt to demonstrate how to use telnet to trouble shoot pop3 protocol problems. Or even better, use telnet to read email on port 110.

Scenario 1 :
Often, when email client such as thunderbird, apple mail, opera mail & others, fails for some reason and its error message indicate that error occurs during communication with the server. But calling the server hosting administrator and they claim that the server is working fine.


Scenario 2:
The machine that we used does not belongs to us. Setting up an email account on it would certainly post security issue to our email account. But then, we just wanna find out what email messages have inside our mailbox. Probably, just wanna read a few lines of the mail message.