What is your favorite Network Tools Live CD / USB, which you could have running in remote offices?

Thu Aug 22 18:14:29 UTC 2013

On 08/22/13 12:06 -0500, Stefan 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 ...

live-build (Debian based) is what I've been using, and has the benefit of
allowing you to pick and choose from Debian's vast repository. Here's my
latest build script:

http://web.olp.net/dwhite/lb.txt

-- 
Dan White