[SOLVED] Install the telnet client without the server or inetutils?

socialfoxes · 2020-05-03 06:19:16

Hi,

I need to install telnet so that I can connect to a remote server and run some legacy software. I can't do this over SSH so I need telnet to do this, but this is the only thing that I would be using telnet for; thus, I don't need a telnet server, or any of the other things included in the inetutils. I literally only need a telnet client, so that I can connect to a remote machine that is running the telnet server.

I apologise for such a newbie question but I am an Debian migrant to Arch and still fairly new to Linux in general. I have only been using Linux for a little over a year, with my only experience being a Debian based system. I have tried looking on these forums and googling for my answer already. I have also searched the Arch Repos and the AUR, but either I am looking in the wrong place, or not looking hard enough because I can't find the stand-alone telnet client, just the inetutils.

In Debian, I was able to install the telnet-client - which is the stand-alone telnet client. No server or additional packages.

Is there a way that I can get a telnet client, without installing all the packages in the inetutils collection on Arch?

Thanks

Jay

Last edited by socialfoxes (2020-05-03 14:25:04)

eschwartz · 2020-05-03 06:50:56

Arch Linux provides one inetutils package, which is barely over 1MB in size and provides 13 different command-line utilities, none of which you are obligated to use.

Debian provides eleven different packages, more or less one for each command-line utility. This is completely insane and serves no purpose. No wonder people say Debian has "more packages", if this is how they inflate their package count...

One of the things which you will get used to the more you use Arch, is that Arch doesn't split apart packages into tiny micro-packages. We don't do much package splitting at all, except when there's some significant gain to be had. This is in contrast to Debian, which splits everything as a matter of policy even if there's no gain at all.

Most Arch users prefer it this way. (Although to be fair, if they didn't prefer it this way they may well have migrated to another distro.)

I wouldn't worry about the 1MB. It's totally inert -- no services are auto-started, also as per Arch policy, so there's not even the danger of someone trying to telnet into your computer.

socialfoxes · 2020-05-03 14:21:04

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I have just went ahead and installed inetutils. I think my problem is that I am still used to the Debian way; although when I think about it, it makes much more sense the way Arch does it. I just need to get used to that.

Cheers
jay

Trilby · 2020-05-03 14:25:15

If you really only need a basic telnet, and if you are using mkinitcpio (not dracut) then you already had it installed:

$ /usr/lib/initcpio/busybox telnet
BusyBox v1.31.1 () multi-call binary.

Usage: telnet HOST [PORT]

Connect to telnet server

Arch Linux

#1 2020-05-03 06:19:16

[SOLVED] Install the telnet client without the server or inetutils?

#2 2020-05-03 06:50:56

Re: [SOLVED] Install the telnet client without the server or inetutils?

#3 2020-05-03 14:21:04

Re: [SOLVED] Install the telnet client without the server or inetutils?

#4 2020-05-03 14:25:15

Re: [SOLVED] Install the telnet client without the server or inetutils?

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