VTY Overview

VTY stands for Virtual TeletYpe interface. It means you can connect to the daemon via the telnet protocol.

To enable a VTY interface, you have to setup a VTY password. If there is no VTY password, one cannot connect to the VTY interface at all.

     % telnet localhost 2601
     Trying 127.0.0.1...
     Connected to localhost.
     Escape character is '^]'.
     
     Hello, this is zebra (version 0.94)
     Copyright 1997-2000 Kunihiro Ishiguro
     
     
     User Access Verification
     
     Password: XXXXX
     Router> ?
       enable            Turn on privileged commands
       exit              Exit current mode and down to previous mode
       help              Description of the interactive help system
       list              Print command list
       show              Show running system information
       who               Display who is on a vty
     Router> enable
     Password: XXXXX
     Router# configure terminal
     Router(config)# interface eth0
     Router(config-if)# ip address 10.0.0.1/8
     Router(config-if)# ^Z
     Router#
     

'?' is very useful for looking up commands.