[165186] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: [Q] What is your favorite Network Tools Live CD / USB, which you
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jon Meek)
Thu Aug 22 14:58:52 2013
In-Reply-To: <CACk08n9YQ0vmzSs3ARHH_2fnrg2sXhxj-ognmcR=eHJAZ0OCaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 14:58:33 -0400
From: Jon Meek <meekjt@gmail.com>
To: Stefan <netfortius@gmail.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org list" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Stefan <netfortius@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been toying with Live distros (CD, then USB) for many years, in
> support of security toolsets, to which I kept adding my own stuff, or
> customizing existing components.
>
> I am now trying to "build" a network toolset LiveCD/USB, but this time with
> a completely different purpose: I would like to put it in the hands of all
> remote offices we have on our network, and use it to have local systems
> boot out of it, and help us then run troubleshooting tools, from the
> central office, by SSH/X-ing into the remote live system (e.g. iperf,
> hping3, httping, tcping, mtr, tcpdump, voip tools, some "thin"
> clients/apps, synthetic transactions scripted to run at diff time
> intervals, and report back to us the "health" seen form the remotes, etc.).
> Has anybody used a "base" network tools Live CD/USB that they would
> recommend, having used as "basis" for such a "network probe" functionality?
>
> NOTE: I assume *nix based (Linux or BSD flavors), not Windows ...
>
> TIA,
> ***Stefan
>
I use Voyage Linux: http://linux.voyage.hk/
In several modes:
- Bootable USB flash drive
- On PC Engines ALIX boards from Compact Flash
- And in a few instances on servers with spinning disks, and desktop with
minimal window system
The bootable USB stick has been used extensively for iperf + tcpdump +
analysis from PCs are remote locations. We either have people copy an image
to the USB stick, or mail them a stick. Then they can turn (almost) any PC
into a network analysis tool. We have the system report it's IP address at
boot time, and then we ssh in.
Jon
