I've just put together a system like this to automate some tests. However, I didn't write my own telnet server. Since the machines we were running were NT, I wasn't able to find a free telnet server, so I just tried out a evaluation copy of one. *if anyone knows of a free nt telnet server, please share, that would be nice to know* If I did it again, I'd just write a simple server listening for particular commands and run my tests that way. The telnet road works, but its not at nice as I'd like. If you don't need to, I'd just write a simple listener/talker system. But then again, maybe you need telnet in particular. In that case, the other's comments are on the money. Don't forget to read the telnet spec.