telneting from the Installation CD

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

Hello!

I've been having problems installing Gentoo for a while, since I need to telnet somewhere to get on the Internet, and doing it from another OS doesn't always work. Obviously the Gentoo installation CD has a few basic utilities for managing the installation, but is there an install CD that also has telnet on it?

sikawob · Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 11:13 am Post subject:

It's a better idea to use ssh, if you want to connect to another pc. Telnet is a really unsecure protocoll, because it will not use any encryption. Are there reasons why you want to use telnet?

IMHO there are all programms included in the basic installation to use ssh. But you can emerge telnet if you really want it.

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

I think you misunderstood me. I can't use SSH, I need to use telnet. And how can I emerge telnet when I need to use telnet to get on the Internet?

Rad · Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 12:43 pm Post subject:

I recommend you to install using another Linux liveCD -one that has got telnet installed. Knoppix or one of its derivates will have, for sure (EDIT: I don't mean any of them, but at least one). Some unofficial Gentoo livecd (you can search the forums for livecd) might have, too. Just don't choose a minimalist liveCD and you'll probably be fine in terms of the other tools needed to perform a gentoo installation...

If you don't want to do that, maybe you can explain what precisely you need to do using telnet; there may be a way to do it using the gentoo livecd, even if it doesn't have a telnet client (which I cannot even confirm

).

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

I have to telnet to a server. That's what I need to do.

Unfortunately, while my connection stayed authenticated for the first part of the install, I had to leave for a while and come back, and before I had the time to emerge telnet, it went down. So I ended up reinstalling Fedora Core 4. Sorry, folks.

If anyone should want to include a telnet binary on the installation CD in the future, though, there's one included in busybox.

dezydery · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 87

I want to telnet from a test server running the installation CD to a Cisco router. If the server is connected straight to the router, it's as secure as it needs to be for my needs.

Also I often telnet to HTTP servers to query publicly available information in the headers, which requires no encryption whatsoever.

If I wanted to be told what I should or shouldn't be running, I'd use Windows.

If there's room on the CD it ought to be on there. I don't mind if the binary is named telnet-insecure or something.

Those people who never use FTP, POP, IMAP etc. in cleartext, never use Gmail or Hotmail etc, perhaps you can tell me how to access a Cisco 828 SDSL router without using telnet or a serial cable, I'd be most enlightened.

If there's simply no space on the CD or nobody has the time to include telnet, just ignore me.

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

I'd be surprised if that were the case, though, since it takes a few lousy kB, and busybox is already used on the CD in question. They've simply chosen not to include it without anticipating what the consequences would be.

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2972

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

opqdan · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:41 pm Post subject:

It seems to me that the easiest solution to this problem would be to download the ebuild from the gentoo portage site, burn it to a cd and then use that cd just like any other package cd. You'll just have to set use_package and the package directory (can't think of this off the top of my head but it is in the documentation). Heck, a telnet client may be included already on the downloadable package cd.

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

It probably is, but unfortunately, I chose the regular install CD, and that's how I ended up with Fedora Core 4. It's probably not a huge problem for most users, but it's worth noting.

dezydery · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 87

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

By the way, does the installation CD include netcat? I didn't know at the time that it could be used instead of telnet, but I noticed recently that it works just as well as long as one specifies the port. Of course, now I'm on Ubuntu... :roll:

rounin · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Apr 2003 Posts: 84

Did I say Ubuntu? Now I'm on Debian :lol:

I think the only one left on my list now is SuSe... But seriously, if netcat is included on the CD, then I might try Gentoo again sometime. It's a good OS, as long as one 's up for a bit of compilation time.