MACTELNET(1)

💖 MACTELNET — bestie edition 💖

okay so real talk: this is the manual page for mactelnet, a General Commands Manual situation, and it's literally your girl for telneting into stuff using MAC addresses instead of IPs. no cap. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

mactelnet — a tool for telneting via MAC addresses. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

mactelnet [options] <MAC-Address|hostname>

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically this tool lets you telnet into other RouterOS devices, or any device that's got MAC-Telnetd running on it. iconic behavior honestly.

you can connect to either a hostname or a MAC address — pick your fighter. and if you do specify a hostname, the hostname (aka the identity) gets looked up via MNDP discovery. the way that works is lowkey magic ngl ✨

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

these programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, bestie — nothing weird here. here's the full rundown, no skipping, we're listing every single one because we don't gatekeep. 💖

• -l — this will discover RouterOS or MAC-Telnetd enabled devices. it will list the MAC-address, the software version, and the uptime of every device or machine it discovers. to exit the discovery, use Control + C. (yes it just runs and runs until you say stop. main character energy honestly 👑)
• -n — do not use broadcast packets. a tad less insecure but it requires root privileges. what this means: ethernet packets will have the specified mac-address as the packet destination, instead of using the ethernet broadcast address. 🫡
• -t — amount of seconds to wait for a response on each interface. if you have several network interfaces, this is the timeout value per interface. so like, multiply accordingly in your head bestie 🧠
• -u — specify username. without this option, you will need to enter the username in a interactive prompt. (interactive prompt = the little guy asks you, very cute, very manual 🌸)
• -p — specify password. without this option, you will need to enter the password in a interactive prompt. same deal as above 💜
• -a — specify the path of the autologin configuration file. the default path for this file is ~/.mactelnet. the format for this file is standard INI file layout. (ini files, we love a classic 📝)
• -A — do not use the autologin configuration file. interactively ask for username and password instead. it's giving "i don't trust my saved configs today" 🙈
• -q — quiet mode. shhh 🤫
• -o — do not send client public key during the authentication phase. it will force the old MD5 (pre 6.43) algorithm to be used. (old-school MD5, retro but make it ✨)
• -h — show summary of options. your little cheat sheet bestie 📋
• -v — show version of program. ⭐

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

mndp(1), mactelnetd(8), macping(1). go read those too, they're part of the family 🫶

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

mactelnet was written by Håkon Nessjøen <haakon.nessjoen@gmail.com>. slay.

this manual page was written by Håkon Nessjøen <haakon.nessjoen@gmail.com>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others). 💖

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okay bestie that's the whole page, you're officially a mactelnet girlie now. go forth and telnet responsibly ✨

this was the MACTELNET(1) manual page, sourced from February 27, 2011 — yeah it's a lil vintage but vintage is literally a vibe 💅💖