I agree that having it on the install image might be nice, but how does it fit in the base group? It's by no means required to get a system running, nor is it required by any standards.

A solution might be to propose it in the base package list at installation but unchecked by default; if I remember correctly, there is already cases like that.

archboot install image already contains it, only the nc symlink was not there, netcat binary is available since ages.
nc symlink will be added in next version.
Adding dieter to bugreport for official install media

I agree mostly with Daenyth.
* netcat is not needed to get a system running, so should _not_ go into base. about core i'm not sure. (inetutils is in core) this is something which can better be answered by real packagers
* what do you need it for on the installation media? define "special way of authentication"? do you mean radius?

@ubitux: this is not about installing netcat to the target system. it's about having netcat available in the installation environment.

Oh if it's just a missing symlink, it's a good news.

@Dieter: the "special way of authentication" is referring to an internal private text protocol we used. Not being authenticated simply means you can't access to the outside.

if it's a text protocol on top of tcp, you can use telnet, which is in inetutils (which is in core)

decision?