Usually, when you log in by telnet, the server starts up a shell. The shell should read an initialization file, which should set up the environment for you, allowing you to use setroot, setsite, and all the hci- commands.
So the problem is that this is not happening for you. I’m not sure if your server is running Unix or Windows, but in Unix servers, Cloverleaf typically sets your login shell to the Korn shell (ksh), and the initialization file is named .profile (with a leading period).
So your long term fix is to find why the .profile file is not being read to set up your environment when you log in. Perhaps you’re not logging in as hci or hcitest, which Cloverleaf sets up for you. Or perhaps you’re using a different login shell.
A quick workaround is to immediately after login type the command source .profile (note the leading period). This should set up the environment for you.
If you’re not using the ksh login shell, though, setroot and setsite will not be properly read in, and you’ll have to do that manually as well. You can do that by changing to the “kshlib” directory just under your Cloverleaf root, and typing source *