No, you may use any remote access software that you choose. Nonetheless, it is recommended that you use a secure application that utilizes strong encryption, such as those listed. Most University of Nevada, Reno servers will accept unsecured communication (e.g. Telnet), however, any information exchanged between the two computers during that time will be easily viewable by any entity snooping on the network. For this reason, a secure application is highly recommended.

Connection problems can occur for any of the following reasons:

• The server may not accept unsecured communication
• You do not have a computing account on that server
• You are entering an incorrect username and/or password
• Your account has been disabled
• The server is down

The server you are trying to connect to may not be accepting Telnet connections. Typically, this is because Telnet is an insecure method of transmitting information. When you establish a connection to a server via Telnet, all data sent between your terminal and the server is in plain text. Should any "third party users" (i.e. hackers) be monitoring connections to the server, it is possible that sensitive information such as your user name and password could be intercepted and compromised. Therefore many servers do not permit Telnet connections, rather they support Secure SHell connections (SSH).

Sometimes a server will crash, making it inaccessible. Since the network servers are highly interconnected, this may cause other servers to crash, temporarily disabling the entire network. The only way to fix a server that is down is to notify a system administrator of the problem.