Project Cranberry
The goal of this project is to create a lean and mean bootable environment based on the latest version of CentOS.
Rationale
During installation or recovery it is useful to be able to debug/troubleshoot a system with the exact same version of the kernel as the installation you are trying to attempt or recover. Sadly the normal Red Hat rescue image does not contain any troubleshooting tools (even mii-tool or ethtool are missing).
Tools
Instead of creating just one image, we would like to create a toolchain that generates this complete environment.
List of software
The following list of software (commands) is desirable:
Recovery software
Troubleshooting software
- dnstop ?
- dnstracer ?
- dsniff ?
- netcat
- fping
- tcptraceroute
Disk/filesystem software
- backup-mbr
- freedup
- gparted
- grub (to be able to fix the bootloader)
- lde
- ms-sys
- par2
- sdparm
- sfdisk (along with fdisk and parted)
File utilities
- 7zip
- afio
- arj
- bzip2
- cabextract
- chntpw
- clamav
- gzip
- hexdump
- mc
- mtools
- md5deep
- rpm
- tar
Benchmarking software
- dstat ?
- gensink ?
- htop
- interbench
- iogen ?
- iometer ?
- iostat ?
- iozone
- iperf
- lmbench ?
- watch ?
Connectivity software
- lftp
- links/lynx
- netcat
- openssh
- proxytunnel / desproxy
- rsync
- telnet
- tsocks
- wget
Kernel functionality
- fuse /sshfs/ntfs-g3/obexfs/smbfs/unionfs/...
- iscsi
- network/wireless drivers+firmware ?
- xfs/jfs/ntfs/reiserfs/...
Hardware info collection
- cmospwd
- dmidecode
- hardinfo
- lshw
- memtest68+ ? (always the latest one)
Documentation / procedures
I would also like to include procedures for all kinds of situation that explains what commands are possible and how you can use them with real examples given. RIPLinux does this as well.
Network interface troubleshooting
Another useful script would be one that automatically lists the different network interface, MAC addresses and type, shows which one has a link, and scans each of them to reverse engineer the network or vlan that network-interface is in.
This would help in determining the root-cause of network-installation problems I have seen at various customers. And could help determine what interface is patched to what network to find the one you need to install from.