Kermit and its Terminal Emulation

If it doesn't make you think about a frog, the name Kermit may remind you of the nearly universally available file-transfer protocol.

But, in addition to allowing the clean transfer of files, several programs inspired by the Kermit project also provide terminal-emulation capability. (As of April A.D. 2002, Kermit 95 also supports SSH, as well as telnet.)

Note: Because of security issues, the "telnet" protocol should no longer be used, by itself, across the public Internet without encapsulation in some secure underlying protocol. SSH is often the most convenient tool for increasing security of remote connections, however, it is not perfect or foolproof. If SSH is deployed carelessly, security weaknesses may still exist in the connection setup, as discussed in The Kermit Project's SSH Client documentation.




Elsewhere on the Internet:

Usenet newsgroups:
comp.protocols.kermit.misc
comp.protocols.kermit.announce
(low volume)

Information from Columbia University and other Authoritative Sources


For Protocol Programmers

A feature article by Tim Kientzle on the Kermit protocol appeared in the February 1996 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. An excerpt:

"Kermit's windowing approach is faster than protocols such as XModem and YModem.... What many people don't realize is that under less-than-ideal conditions, Kermit's windowing approach is significantly faster than ZModem, a protocol with a well-deserved reputation for fast transfers over good-quality lines."

If you want to understand and perhaps re-implement the Kermit protocol, you may want to read a book by Tim Kientzle, published by the Coriolis Group, The Working Programmer's Guide to Serial Protocols by Tim Kientzle. This volume discusses Kermit, Zmodem, and other protocols, and provides sample code in C++. Although now out of print, you may possibly be able to locate a copy. Select this and that to find out more.

Another reference is Kermit: A File Transfer Protocol by Frank da Cruz.

The Kermit Project also explains what a video terminal is.


For the sake of completeness, here links concerning two related data-transfer protocols:


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