Telnet provides unencrypted remote terminal access on IOS-XR. Because traffic is sent in cleartext, telnet should only be enabled in isolated management networks or legacy environments where SSH is not supported. Per-VRF server limits and ACLs control which VRFs accept inbound sessions and how many concurrent connections are allowed. DSCP marking can be applied per VRF for QoS classification, and client source interfaces determine the originating address for outbound telnet connections.