telnet on local LAN question

[Paul Allen Newell]

To all those who have replied to my questions and wanted to know the 
"why/what" of my set-up as an aid to figuring out what I am trying to do:

Though familiar with Unix/Linux for a long time, it has always been as a 
software developer with good sysAdmins to deal with all "that stuff". 
When I first got my machines, I could only view it within that framework 
and therefore set up a LAN in which I treat each machine as a standalone 
with just enough connectivity between them to help install (ssh and scp, 
with the occaisional memory stick). Hence, I assume that at any time, I 
will only be on one machine and the others are clones if need be. It 
also gives me a way to upgrade Fedora releases and make sure I like it 
before I adopt across the board. And, most importantly, if a machine 
goes burp, I can continue forward on the other machines while sorting 
out the problem on that burping machine (which just happened recently)

In summary, I am not wanting (currently) to allocate one machine to 
handle tasks for the others. I'm trying to learn how one machine can / 
can't communicate with another. Once I am comfortable with that, I might 
be prepared to take the leap and try a more formal/proper network.

Hope that helps understanding the context of my questions,

And, of course, many thanks to all those who have helped as its one 
grand learning experience,
Paul