Exploit through firewall question

I'm using MetaSploit to test a box for a variety of vulnerabilities. To get to 
the box I have to go through our firewall.

1) I notify our network and ids people
2) I always get that the system is not vulnerable but I feel it's because of 
the firewall.
3) Should I be testing this using port 80 (i.e. on a telnet buffer overflow) or 
just go straight to port 23?
4) here's the output: Connection failed: Connection failed: Operation now in 
progress
5) if it is sucessful will it automagically open a cmd line or remote session?

Thanks

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