telnet into a netgear switch?

[David Birdsong <david () imgix com>]

Hey all, last night while at the datacenter I was in a pinch to extend a
rack's LAN. I compromised and ran out to the local Fry's to buy whatever
switch I could find so as to allow some configuration to happen while
we wait for the real network gear to show up.

I left before confirming I could access the switch remotely; it was very
late and I was pretty groggy and hey, any network gear has to be
telnet'table this day and age. Of course I was mostly wrong.

The switch expects some signed payload before allowing a telnet through. I
found this: https://code.google.com/p/netgear-telnetenable/...but I'm
having a hell of a time getting anything to respond.

The most confounding part is the switch doesn't respond to a single SYN
packet on low ports. I'm scanning all the ports now, but if nothing shows
up, I'm not sure what a payload is good for if the switch doesn't ACK a
single SYN.

I'm curious if anybody's got any tips besides not using Netgear in the
datacenter.

I have the MAC, I've IP'd it via DHCP, and the model number: JGS524E and I
can power cycle the switch as much as needed.


P.S. long time listener, first time caller. i'm more of a sysadmin
dangerously standing in for a proper network person.