Perhaps telnet is working properly but something else is causing your login shell to exit immediately.
I get a similar response, not with telnet, but with script. I would get "Script started, output file is typescript" and then it would immediately exit with "Script done, output file is typescript". This happens with bash at the console, but it does not happen in an rxvt, and it doesn't happen with zsh at all. I don't notice it anymore since I use zsh all the time now, but a quick check revealed that it's still doing that. Try putting an "echo Hello telnet world" as the first line of you .bashrc (or whatever shell initialization file you use), to verify whether your telnet session gets at least that far. If it doesn't, try switching login shells and see if it that works. ************** MICHAEL SCOTT ORR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ***************** * * 1405 NE 56th Street, Seattle, WA 98105 USA * English * * * Tel: +1 (206) 522-9627, fax: 328-6209 * Russki * * * Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Esperanto * ***************** (Insert silly quote here) ************************