I tried UBUNTU Server 64 Bit to build an intranet server. It starts without Network-Tools (f. e. ifconfig). I am associated to install sudo apt-get net-tools - okay, but without any network?
I would recommend acquiring a full set of disks (CDs / DVDs) for the version of Ubuntu that you are working with. That will jump start a repository to install things.
Check the repos configuration file on the boot media. It will have a repository that is the installation media to use as an example.
I'd also recommend exploring a local repository mirror. Possibly no a notebook computer that can be taken elsewhere to be updated on occasion. Sneaker net things from the Internet into the intranet.
For several years I've been running a home network organised these lines:
- my ADSL gateway box has been fairly carefully configured to accept NO incoming connections and to be invisible to external scanners. I regularly use external scanners to check that no ports are advertised to external networks. Gibson Research Labs are very useful for making these checks.
- this setup allows anything on the inside to connect out to the net, so web browsers, FTP clients, web browsers, Fedora's dnf updater, my RPi's apt updater etc. can all connect out to talk to external servers and my MTA can send outgoing mail to my ISP.
- I run getmail to retrieve mail and pass it to my local Postfix MTA for distribution within my LAN. This also works well because getmail only connects outward to my ISP's MTA to retrieve mail.
- All hosts on my MTA run firewalls, configured to reject connections on ports I don't use for communication within my LAN.
The only disadvantage of this arrangement is that incoming e-mail is delayed because the cron job that controls getmail fires it up at 10 minute intervals, but the only time I'm aware of this delay is when I'm testing anything where the 'incoming' messages being tested are sent by me and won't be retrieved until the next tie getmail is run.
Since I run a local Postfix MTA, if I was happy to poke holes in my external firewall the simplest solution would be to leave the SMTP port open.
But since, IMO, a few minutes delay in receiving mail is a price well worth paying for blocking all external connection requests. If the delay bothered me I'd have increased the cronjob launch rate from 6 times an hour to 12 times an hour.
Re: Re: UBUNTU Server without Network? By: F. W. to All on Tue Mar 16 2021 08:30 am
For the record, you used to be able to purchase the Ubuntu and Debian repositories as a DVD collection from the Internet. You would then load the indexes in your package manager and install the softweare in a more or less automated way using the package managers and your DVDs.
You can replicate such deployment using a hard drive and installing a trivial repository there.
There was also a tool (whose name I don't remember) that was designed to be installed in a pen-drive. You would take your pen-drive to a computer with internet and tell the too installed in the pen drive that you wanted to install $whatever in an offline machine. The tool would download all the dependencies and packages and save them, so when you got back to your off-line computer, you had everything that was needed to perform your install. The tool was also smart and didn't download dependencies if it knew the off-line computer already had them installed.
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