When we have to reboot a router or a modem+router combo, we usually login to its web interface through well known IP addresses like 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1, find the section for restarting and choose the option to reboot the modem. But very few people know that every router allows multiple ways to access its settings and consequently rebooting of the router. For example, a standard Linksys router would allow you to connect to it through TFTP or telnet. If your router allows connecting to it through Telnet, then it becomes very easy to reboot it.
Here is how you can reboot your router through telnet:
- First of all you need a telnet client so that you can access your router’s options over a telnet connection. While most of the Linux builds come with a telnet client pre-installed, modern versions of Windows do not have any telnet client. For Windows, you can download the free PuTTY tool for this purpose. PuTTY is also available for Linux.
- Launch PuTTY, switch to the Session section (if not already selected) and enter the IP address of your router’s gateway in the Host name field. Usually the IP address is 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1, but you can check your router’s documentation to be sure.
- Select Telnet from the list of connection type options. This will automatically change the port number to 23. Click on the Open button to initiate the connection to your router.
- If everything goes well, you would see a console window with a welcome message from your router and a command prompt where you type in the commands. If instead of the welcome message, you see some sort of error, then check the IP address of the router’s web interface once again. If IP address is correct then perhaps your router does not support access via the telnet.
- The first thing you will have to do is to enter your username and password to gain access to your router. This username and password is exactly same as the one you use when accessing the router’s web interface.
- You can see a list of commands by typing help and pressing Enter. This router command prompt is basically a very limited version of a Linux shell, so you would see familiar commands. In order to reboot your router, you can type reboot and press Enter.
- Your router will restart and you would see a usual series of events like blinking of LEDs in your router etc. In a few seconds, your router will be up and running. But in the meanwhile, you would lose the telnet connection in PuTTY, so you can now close the PuTTY window.
Conclusion: You can reboot your routers over a telnet connection very easily. All it needs is a telnet client, and if your operating system does not come with a telnet client of its own, then you can use the free PuTTY telnet client.