iputils-arping appropriate for standard?

Mathias Gug mathiaz at ubuntu.com
Fri Aug 20 23:02:48 BST 2010


Excerpts from Stephan Hermann's message of Wed Aug 18 07:57:11 -0400 2010:
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:22:26PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> > In the foundations-m-spring-cleaning session at UDS, we wondered whether
> > iputils-arping was really appropriate in ubuntu-standard.  This is
> > installed on all Ubuntu systems other than those created using a bare
> > debootstrap.  The seed comment is "would have made my life easier at
> > debconf"; it dates back to revision 1 of the seeds, so I can't tell whom
> > the pronoun refers to, but that must refer to one of our first
> > gatherings at DebConf 4, so I'm guessing the comment is from James Troup
> > (CCed).  Of course that would place this comment before the idea of
> > universe was conceived, and back then whatever we had in main was all
> > you got in Ubuntu ...
> > 
> > I don't really want to have a protracted argument over it since it's
> > pretty small (23KB), and I generally like the idea of having some useful
> > networking tools in standard; but it does seem like a relatively
> > abstruse debugging tool to me.  Perhaps we should move this to supported
> > somewhere, keeping it in main for security support but taking it off the
> > CD?
> 
> I think this tool shouldn't be installed by default but should be available on the CD.
> It's useful for SysAdmins and NetworkAdmins...but isn't necessary for Endusers.

Which CD are is being referred to here?

I might see a use case for the -server CD: in an environment where
network access to the archive is limited/broken. Being able to install
iputils-arping from the -server iso to debug networking problem from a
server would be useful.

For the Desktop live CD would iputils-arping be useful? Would a
System/Network Admin boot a Desktop Live CD to debug network problems?

Keeping it in main makes sense IMO.

-- 
Mathias Gug
Ubuntu Developer  http://www.ubuntu.com



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