How do I allow more than 10 telnet sessions from an IP on Linux?

By default, RHEL limits the number of telnet connections from a single host to 10 simultaneous sessions. This is a security feature, but can be a problem in thin-client environments where many legitimate users connect from the same source IP address. To raise the limit:

  • Open the /etc/xinetd.conf file for editing
vim /etc/xinetd.conf
  • Find the line containing the “per_source” value
  • Increase the integer from 10 to an appropriately-sized value for your environment
  • Save the configuration file
  • Reload xinetd
service xinetd reload