Foundation or terminal standard
Telnet
Telnet Protocol and Option Negotiation
Widely used
Documented current use
The base framing and negotiation layer beneath most traditional MUD sessions and MUD-specific Telnet options.
Protocol overview
- First seen
- 1983
- Present-day status
- Widely used
- In use today?
- Yes, with documented current use.
- Legacy?
- No.
- Layer
- Foundation or terminal standard
- Transport
- TCP byte stream with IAC commands and subnegotiation
- Research validated
Current use and fit
Universal across traditional MUD servers and clients.
Implementation essentials
- Use an incremental byte parser independent of TCP packet boundaries.
- Escape literal IAC bytes.
- Use RFC 1143-style option state to avoid negotiation loops.
Compatibility and safety notes
- One recv call does not equal one Telnet command.
- Keep protocol framing byte-oriented even when application text is UTF-8.
Original specifications and sources
- RFC 854 Telnet Protocol Standard
- RFC 855 Telnet Option Specifications Standard
- IANA Telnet Options Registry Registry
Where an original site has disappeared, a preservation archive is linked and identified as such. MUDVerse does not claim authorship of the original protocol.