# Telnet client without server?

## Labinnah

Hi,

is there any way to emerge just a telnet client and not also a server?

The reason i ask is, that the new telnet-bsd ebuild depends on xinetd which i don't need/want. If there was a USE flag to just emerge the client then this dependency could also test for this flag.

Any help is appreciated.

Labinnah

----------

## Jerem

```
emerge netkit-telnetd
```

Or is there any particular reason why you would want to stick with telnet-bsd ?

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## think4urs11

 *Labinnah wrote:*   

> is there any way to emerge just a telnet client and not also a server?
> 
> The reason i ask is, that the new telnet-bsd ebuild depends on xinetd which i don't need/want.

 

are your really sure? i don't have xinetd installed and newest telnet-bsd installed without issues

```
# emerge xinetd telnet-bsd -pv

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

[ebuild  N    ] sys-apps/xinetd-2.3.14  USE="perl tcpd" 294 kB

[ebuild   R   ] net-misc/telnet-bsd-1.2-r1  USE="nls" 0 kB

Total size of downloads: 294 kB
```

but for your initial question ... no idea, i'd prefer to have a telnet client only too.

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## lxg

May I ask what for you need a telnet client? If it's only for playing around with raw connections on random ports, you could try netcat, it does (at least) the same job, and is a leightweight tool exactly for that purpose.

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## think4urs11

 *lx0 wrote:*   

> May I ask what for you need a telnet client?

 

Management of

- switches, hubs, access points

- stone-old machines in general (>=8 year old AIXes for example)

- access to e.g. AS400 green-screen applications

- etc.

which are simply not capable of doing ssh?

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## lxg

 *Think4UrS11 wrote:*   

> Management of
> 
> - switches, hubs, access points
> 
> - stone-old machines in general (>=8 year old AIXes for example)
> ...

 

*lol* I'd never know that without you. Thank you very much.

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## think4urs11

 *lx0 wrote:*   

> *lol* I'd never know that without you. Thank you very much.

 

thats why i told you... of course all that can be done with netcat - as i could maintain databases with a disk editor - both just a matter of effort   :Wink: 

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## Labinnah

@Jerem:

I looked at the ebuild of netkit-telnetd and there is this comment:

```
# Gentoo lacks a maintainer for this package right now.
```

It also says that it is in sync with debian's package but why use an unmaintained program if there is a maintained one?

@ Think4UrS11:

```
labinnah ~ # emerge -upv telnet-bsd

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

[ebuild  N    ] sys-apps/xinetd-2.3.14  USE="tcpd -perl" 294 kB 

[ebuild     U ] net-misc/telnet-bsd-1.2-r1 [1.2] USE="nls" 0 kB 

Total size of downloads: 294 kB
```

And that can also be seen in the ebuild:

```
RDEPEND="sys-libs/ncurses

                sys-apps/xinetd"
```

So yes, i am sure that telnet-bsd wants xinetd.

@lx0:

I need telnet to talk to my router when i update the firmware or just play with the linux that it's running.

Well, it looks as if i have to make a portage overlay after all.   :Sad: 

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## think4urs11

 *Labinnah wrote:*   

> @ Think4UrS11:
> 
> ```
> labinnah ~ # emerge -upv telnet-bsd
> 
> ...

 

 :Shocked:  huh?

1.2.ebuild (no RDEPEND at all):

```
DEPEND="!net-misc/netkit-telnetd"
```

1.2-r1.ebuild:

```
RDEPEND="sys-libs/ncurses"

DEPEND="${RDEPEND}

        !net-misc/netkit-telnetd"
```

```
# ls -la /usr/portage/net-misc/telnet-bsd/telnet-bsd-1.2*

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  752  4. Jul 2005  /usr/portage/net-misc/telnet-bsd/telnet-bsd-1.2.ebuild

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1120 24. Mai 23:06 /usr/portage/net-misc/telnet-bsd/telnet-bsd-1.2-r1.ebuild
```

last emerge --sync: Jun 26, 2006 08:15:19 CEST

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## Labinnah

Hmm, that's interesting.

```
labinnah ~ # ls -la /usr/portage/net-misc/telnet-bsd/telnet-bsd-1.2*

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1136 Jun 26 14:37 /usr/portage/net-misc/telnet-bsd/telnet-bsd-1.2-r1.ebuild

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  752 Jul  4  2005 /usr/portage/net-misc/telnet-bsd/telnet-bsd-1.2.ebuild
```

My last "emerge --sync" was at Jun 26, 2006 19:28:19 CEST.

Maybe there is hope that tomorrow the ebuild is more to my liking...   :Confused: 

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## Labinnah

Yay, the ebuild has been corrected over night.   :Very Happy: 

from the Changelog:

```
  26 Jun 2006; Henrik Brix Andersen <brix@gentoo.org>

  telnet-bsd-1.2-r1.ebuild:

  Cleaned up the brokeness introduced by blubb. This should be wrapped in

  client/server USE flags.

  26 Jun 2006; Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org> telnet-bsd-1.2-r1.ebuild:

  add xinetd to RDEPEND
```

----------

