Jonathan Wilson wrote: > My base minimal net install of Etch for not have the "ip" binary at all. A > search in Debian packages shows that it belongs to "iproute". Correct. > iproute is (obviously) not a default package, and it's last changelog was in > 2006. The Stable release of Debian is "stable" meaning that the packages are not changed nor updated unless there is an important reason to do so such as security vulnerabilities. The version of iproute released with Debian Stable Etch has not had any security advisories against it and therefore has not needed a new version. If you look at the bleeding edge version in Sid you will see that it has been getting newer changes. Here is the changelog for the version in Unstable / Sid. http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/i/iproute/iproute_20070313-1/changelog > Is iproute considered obsolete now, also? It is still considered the tool to use as far as I know. Here is an alternative reference that also discusses it. http://www1.shorewall.net/Shorewall_and_Aliased_Interfaces.html > Or is it just that so few people use it it's not part of the base system? I assume that it is not in the base system because it is not actually required on all systems. Systems that do not have network interfaces will not need this for example. It would seem reasonable to lobby to have the debian-installer install this by default when a network interface is detected. Or possibly to have it added to one of the tasks so that aptitude will install it by default at system installation time. But I don't think it needs to be forced onto all systems. Bob
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