# Introduction

### About This Document

This HOWTO attempts to clear up some of the confusion of using `term`, Michael O'Reilly's remarkable program that allows you to multiplex your serial line and set up an ersatz network connection. By and large, the documents that come with `term` are quite good, and this HOWTO is not intended to replace them. The intent of this document is to give some background on how `term` works and detail the steps in getting some of the more common networking services working under `term`. I should emphasize that this document doesn't cover everything there is to know about `term`. After reading it, you should read the `term` manpages, since they include information not contained here.

### What is `term?`

`term` is a program, written by Michael O'Reilly (michael@iinet.com.au), that is run over a serial line to allow multiple connections to operate concurrently - i.e. you can be downloading a file over your modem while working on a (different) remote system via the same modem connection. `term` can also be used to open up X client windows over a serial connection. Through the `tredir` utility, `term` can provide many of the ``traditional'' network services: mail, news, ftp, telnet, etc. In a sense, `term` is very much like other serial protocols such as SLIP or PPP. `term` 's advantage is that it can be run entirely from user space, requiring neither kernel support nor support from system or network administrators.