rsh: Trouble connecting to Windows XP from Mac?

Question

I want to run a batch script on a Windows XP machine from my Mac 10.6.6. I installed Windows SFU, including Remote Shell Service, which I verified is started on the remote machine (http://screencast.com/t/uYDmpkUwJ4). However, I'm unable to connect from my Mac, repeatedly getting timeouts ...

$ rsh 192.168.199.131 'cd C:\'
192.168.199.131: Operation timed out
$ telnet 192.168.199.131 4444
Trying 192.168.199.131...
Connected to 192.168.199.131.
Escape character is '^]'.

Notice that I'm able to telnet successfully into another service, so it's not a network issue. I created a ~/.rhosts file that consists of ...

192.168.199.131 developer

Any ideas why I can't connect or what else I need to do to troubleshoot this issue? - Dave

Answer 1

Do you have to use rsh(1)? It is unauthenticated, unencrypted, provides no message integrity or privacy, and is easily spoofed. Do you really want that for your Windows machine?

I suggest instead running an ssh server on windows; then you can just use ssh(1) and get strong authentication and encryption. And use modern tools.

Answer 2

You're able to successfully telnet to port 4444, but rsh usually listens on port 514. Maybe your firewall config is letting 4444 through, but blocking 514?

You might try running Wireshark on the Windows machine, to watch the network traffic while you try to establish an rsh connection.