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Old 02-20-2009, 12:29 AM   #1
Retrosmith
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Determine Distro without logging in.


I have a set of boxes that are all versions of Centos, Debian, Red Hat and maybe a couple other distros and have been tasked with determining and documenting which box is which OS. However, I cannot login to any of the boxes for privacy reasons or turn them off. Every box has no GUI (console only) so the most I can access is the login screen.

I know it may be impossible, but is there any telltale signs to look for in order to determine what distro is running from just a console login?

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Old 02-20-2009, 12:40 AM   #2
frieza
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well sometimes the boot manager says it
sometimes at the login prompt when you boot up it says it
 
Old 02-20-2009, 01:37 AM   #3
H_TeXMeX_H
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Use a live CD, that's the only way I know. You may get lucky of course and it may say somewhere during the boot process.
 
Old 02-20-2009, 05:43 AM   #4
repo
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you could try to use nmap
Code:
nmap -sS -O -v xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
it will try do do a OS detection.
 
  


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