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The Lubuntu 17.04 Desktop/Live CD(ISO) is missing the package: net-tools[1]
It's troubling to find a LiveCD today that does not have something as simple as netstat and other important tools available.
It's also quite pathetic to discover the recent Debian LiveCDs are missing UFW[2].
[1] "This package includes the important tools for controlling the network subsystem of the Linux kernel. This includes arp, ifconfig, netstat, rarp, nameif and route."
[2] "The Uncomplicated FireWall is a front-end for iptables, to make managing a Netfilter firewall easier. It provides a command line interface with syntax similar to OpenBSD's Packet Filter. It is particularly well-suited as a host-based firewall."
[Ed note: Assuming one has an internet connection, can't one just do something along the lines of apt-get $package_name to fill in what is missing? Is this just whining on the part of the submitter or an actual shortcoming? What are your thoughts on this?]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 12 2017, @12:12PM (5 children)
That tools are missing could be because space constraints, configuration conflicts, inability to have foresight or just plain cooperating with the three letter powers. And retrieving and installing packages (apt-get etc) may fail miserably because disc media (CD) are usually read only or writable only as a gigantic kludge. Network or any other device to load code from may simple not be available. If you sit in a server room where communications are in a disarray and need to get.. the router up. A catch-22 is not something on the wish list.
It's not too uncommon to on a server to only have CDrom, RAID harddisc, network and serial as communication channels to load software. On top of that neither BIOS setup or I/O is handled in any normal way. So CDrom standalone is preferred. You may try to load from a RAID harddisc by preparing it as a part of a RAID but then you run a serious risk of screwing something else up with gigantic data losses as a consequence. There might be a hidden floppy interface, if you are willing to lift 20 kg of server from a cumbersome mechanical setup open up without loosing screws and find a 1.44MB drive lying around somewhere and succeed to have another computer that can format them and have said network connection = ouch! So why not try the network, well it may be restricted and if you enter the wrong parameters etc you may have to wait until the network administrator to wake up and reset the switch for you = wasted day. So serial, but then you need to have another computer there connected which can serve you the files over snail straw line using a cable no longer common. Unless it does the TX-TX thing and fries something or just doing it by ground loop sending your server to the scrap heap.
So please, just make the f%&ยค%king LiveCD to work by itself or it will end up on the list of products to avoid hard.
The above scenario has of course many variations but the essence is the same. Any LiveCD that can stand on it's own is usually worthless outside a developer circumstances.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:47PM (1 child)
Any LiveCD that can stand on it's own
Any LiveCD that [can't] stand on [its] own
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:15PM
Have you ever tried balancing those bastards? CDs just fall over when placed on edge, unless you are very, very good at this kind of thing.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @01:34PM (2 children)
Don't forget USB.
I've rescued systems using USB. Upgrade, network card firmware doesn't work anymore or doesn't exist anymore, no problem put the OLD .deb file that has working firmware on a USB stick, plug in, install, reboot, all is well.
You can also do something similar with virtualization. mount the worlds smallest partition and copy a file to it, then mount that partition file on the booted up virtual image and access that second virtual disk.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 12 2017, @02:16PM (1 child)
Gah.. I had USB on my mind when I started writing that post. Oh well ;)
Well USB can provide CDrom, floppy, flash memory, network etc. So yeah it's a real option. The catch may be that support may not be there, BIOS don't want to boot it or that it's USB1 which means really slow.
As for virtualization. Those systems pretty much rely on there being a system to start with? So that host OS should be able to serve whatever is needed to get the job done?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @03:12PM
Yeah it would be pretty hard to find a situation messed up enough that all that doesn't work is the network but it still boots outside of R+D experiments making a new "gold" template for deployment.
Maybe if you're running vmware and something absolutely horrendous happened to vmware-tools... maybe.
Most of the time I'd spin up a new whatever it is, attach the dead old virtual hard drive to the new image and copy any data over that I need, assuming there is any.
Sometimes its fun to do dumb virtualization tricks purely for fun and instead of running modern OS try to get win2K to boot or try to get msdos installed and sometimes you can get wedged into weird situations.