Arrow keys turn into control characters in Telnet

Question

I\'m in an Ubuntu terminal, and telnet to a server. Now whenever I type \'up\', it turns into ^[[A. Other arrow keys also turn into control characters. Is there a way I can run

Answer 1

It's not telnet that needs to understand the escape sequences your keys produce; it's whatever program you're typing them into at the remote end. Looks like your $TERM environment variable (on the remote system) is not getting set correctly for the terminal you're running telnet in.

It's been a while since I used telnet for logins, but IIRC it doesn't transfer TERM automatically, so you may have to set it yourself. Or, as Mike C suggests, use ssh instead -- that does transfer TERM.