Enable Telnet on macOS Catalina for EVE-NG
Note: Big Sur – this method no longer works – instead, head over to the eve-ng download page (link) scroll to the bottom and download the ‘Apple OSX Client Side’ package – it bundles in iTerm and works great!
Since Apple has removed the telnet and ftp programs from their latest operating system, you may find yourself unable to use EVE-NG’s clickable interface to start up sessions to your routers that rely on telnet, and may be receiving the error below;
[Command not found: telnet]
Could not create a new process and open a pseudo-tty.
Even if you follow some other guides online which suggest using homebrew or copying the files to /usr/local/bin, you’ll find this doesn’t resolve the problem of accessing telnet:// style links which EVE-NG rely’s upon.
So, to fix this; first we need to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection);
1. Reboot your Mac and hold the CMD + R keys
2. When presented with the recovery options, (you might need to enter your password first if you use FileVault encryption) click Utilities at the top and choose Terminal
3. Type; csrutil disable
4. Reboot as normal
Next we need to put the files back to where they were pre-High Sierra
5. Once back onto your desktop, download the telnet and ftp files -from here-
and extract them to your downloads folder.
6. Next, open a terminal and type;
Pre-Catalina;
sudo cp ~/Downloads/mac-telnet-ftp/telnet /usr/bin/telnet
sudo cp ~/Downloads/mac-telnet-ftp/ftp /usr/bin/ftp
Catalina
sudo mount -uw /
killall Finder
sudo cp ~/Downloads/mac-telnet-ftp/telnet /usr/bin/telnet
sudo cp ~/Downloads/mac-telnet-ftp/ftp /usr/bin/ftp
7. Ensure these are executable, type;
sudo chmod +xr /usr/bin/telnet
sudo chmod +xr /usr/bin/ftp
Next we need to reboot and re-enable SIP (System Integrity Protection);
8. Again, Reboot your Mac and hold the CMD + R keys
9. When presented with the recovery options, click Utilities at the top and choose Terminal
10. Type; csrutil enable
11. Reboot as normal
Et Voila! EVE-NG should be back and working as normal, and your command line tools have been restored.
Example;
Thanks and good luck with your study/labs.
About Author
Great post! Thanks! it is working
Man, thanks a lot and good job
Thanks, worked flawlessly, Awesome! Such a huge help 🙂
I cannot freaking type anything on my terminal after the below message, so step 6 is not possible for me. Any workaround?
[Could not create a new process and open a pseudo-tty.]
You shouldn’t be seeing that message at the point of step 6. All step 6 is doing is copying the files from the downloads folder into the directory – you can use finder to do the same thing.
Excellent!! Thank You
Superb.!!!!!
Wasted 6hrs to get to this page..really appreciate your help,
and by the way i used this on new macOS Monjave and it worked…Perfect
I cannot to copy file, its shown doesn’t have permission.
How can I do?
Thanks a lot, this article helped me.
Now everything looks good and works perfect (like)
I have followed your steps and after console I receive this error ” remote connection refused”
Any help for me.
The server your connecting to isn’t allowing connections. that is a completely different error to what this article is helping you to resolve. I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help.
top, it’s functional 🙂
Thank You very much for sharing this.
I was able to make EVE-NG work on my MBP.
Thanks again for the effort to put this online.
Cheers from São Paulo, Brazil
Finally a workaround that works!!!
Great stuff men!
Cheers!
Wooow I could finally work on my labs! Thank you so much!
It stopped working again after upgrading to catalina on MAC OS and now it keeps saying it tried doing the filesystem is read only mode.
Hi Aakash,
I’ve just updated the article to support Catalina, Let me know how you get on!
Thanks
It stopped working after upgrading to catalina on MACOS ;( Any solution?
Hi Aakash,
I’ve just updated the article to support Catalina, Let me know how you get on!
Thanks
Seems this does not work anymore in Catalina as the system runs on a ‘read-only file volume’ 🙁
Hi! mmfd,
I’ve just updated the article to support Catalina, Let me know how you get on!
Thanks
Thanks a lot, this works way better than what I did in past with homebrew!
i disabled the csrutil and still get error when i try to cp in Catalina, the system runs on a ‘read-only file volume .. any idea?
Follow the Catalina advice,
sudo mount -uw /
Then try again 🙂
Working!!! Thanks
Super!
thanks. it works.
Thanks! It works in Catalina.
It works. thanks a lot.
you can also copy them to /usr/local/bin/
this will avoid to mess with csrutil 😉
That didn’t work for me when I tested, maybie newer version of eve-ng now supports that. I’ll have to give it a test! thanks for the feedback.
well /usr/local/bin is in system path so any program should be able to launch them
of course NOT if they launch with complete path ( eg. /usr/bin/telnet )
then your method is mandatory 😉
thanks to you
It is not working with macOS Big Sur.
Hi Alex!
So yeah this doesn’t work with Big Sur, however the EVE-NG guys have now got a mac os x client package you can install. it works great! scroll right to the bottom of the download page on the eve-ng website to the ‘Apple OSX Client Side’ section: https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/download/
This worked for me before, back when I was still using Catalina.
I’m now using BigSur (what a regret!) and it no longer works. It seems a few things changed.
Even after disabling crsutil, I the remainder of the commands do not work.
when I try to mount command, macOS complains:
mount_apfs: volume could not be mounted: Permission denied
mount: / failed with 66
Hi Andr!
So yeah this doesn’t work with Big Sur, however the EVE-NG guys have now got a mac os x client package you can install. it works great! scroll right to the bottom of the download page on the eve-ng website to the ‘Apple OSX Client Side’ section: https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/download/
Hi, thanks for the reply, but no… this doesn’t work in BigSur either.
Actually, that alone wouldn’t work with Catalina as well. Back in Catalina, I had to both download and install the macOS client you linked AND follow the step by step in this document here.
Now, with BigSur what happens (after installing the macOS client pack) is that I can start the router/switch in EVE-NG, click on it to open a connection and choose “Open with iTerm”.
iTerm then opens, but it is forever stuck at:
Trying 192.168.0.38…
Connected to 192.168.0.38.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
Hi Andre. It works great for me. I think that must be an issue with the router/device you’re trying to connect to. It sounds like its getting connected but your router isn’t accepting any input. Are you able to connect by manually connecting to the ip/port?
Hi….
i’m facing the same issue but it’s work fine with high sierra as u suggest but in Big Sur not working showing the same issue as mentioned above..
could you please check in Big Sur..
thanks
This works for Big Sur. Thanks
Yes, it is not working with BigSur
HI,
Have you got Wireshark to work in EVE-NG and I can not get it to work.
If so can you inform the likes of us, who don’t know how to get it working?
Thansj
Saved me a lot of digging around – thank you
“Note: Big Sur – this method no longer works – instead, head over to the eve-ng download page (link) scroll to the bottom and download the ‘Apple OSX Client Side’ package – it bundles in iTerm and works great!”