On 2013 May 7, at 20:30 , Simon Lyall wrote: > The general Linux/Unix environment does evolve over time and commands get > replaced or become completely obsolete[1]. Netcat is over 17 years old[2] and > has been in Debian since 1998[3] so you can hardly say it is brand new.
Yet netcat isn't part of the toolset that most non-linux based distros seem to have. I didn't have it available on current HP-UX or AIX as far as I could see. (Not being present on HP-UX was enough to guarantee I wasn't allowed to use it anywhere, because I needed consistent tools for multiple platforms for all work). Even on Solaris, it wasn't as widely distributed as some might like. I don't have a recent build of Solaris 10 handy, but I don't see netcat on the list of tools included with Solaris 10 according to the Oracle website on the subject. Linux is popular, but it isn't the only OS. Even there, I didn't used to have it available on the builds I had to work with. [2] The fact is not only does telnet still do nearly everything I need for a network debugging utility, netcat does not appear to support cleanly handling some of the cases I used telnet for in the past, like explicitly sending break signals, or things like Are You There and Go Ahead. Is it perfect? No. Is it the tool in hand and thus better than the tool not available?[3] Absolutely. [1] There is no [1] [2] This is a gripe of mine lately, to presume that Linux is the only operating system around. [3] And I could probably get the rest of what I care about with any ksh written since 1993. ---- "The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue." Edward R Murrow (1964) Mark McCullough [email protected] _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
