Sometimes I just want to boot fast with a live CD to gain access to a file system, or mount a network cifs path and do some kind of processing on the machine (ex: run a remote FAH instance). I've found that most live CDs that I've tried are not good for this. For example, Ubuntu does not have the proper mount.cifs command and the standard mount just errors out and refuses to mount anything. I have to do a yum install just to get ssh server going, etc...

I just want a live CD that already has all the basic stuff and I can just start working right away to do basic tasks like a cifs mount or ssh fs mount. Boot time is also a bonus, something that is easy to boot and does not require much user intervention. In fact, what would be really awesome is a boot CD that immediately starts as a SSH server so all I need to do is let it boot and walk away and when it's done booting I see the IP on the screen and can immediately SSH to it via some default password.

Is there any live CD like this that exists? I'm even willing to look at making my own, but if there's already something out there then even better.

I suggest Austrumi linux(latest .iso on website forum) because if it works with hardware it's placed on then it is soo handy. It even can load itself to RAM to eject CD to use that drive for other needs or simply to be fast in general without loading trouble. To be fair i have no clue if it supports your mentioned details but it should. Anyway it is worth trying and there is programs list on website aswell. There is plenty more in my signature about live media list.

I'll give it a try, really I can just try a bunch in a VM and decide which one I like better.

Please don't try Austrumi in VM. It has issues with virtualisation. It's better if you get erasable CD or cheap CD if you don't want waste normal CD for it but it is really worth it + when you burn iso check multisession option if needed to not close it for later use. It can be placed on USB but it requires to be booted first then installed from there to USB.