Reverse telnet is a specialized application of telnet, where the server side of the connection reads and writes data to a computer terminal line (RS-232 serial port), rather than providing a command shell to the host device. Typically, reverse telnet is implemented on an embedded device (e.g. terminal/console server), which has an Ethernet network interface and serial port(s). Through the use of reverse telnet on such a device, IP-networked users can use telnet to access serially-connected devices.