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I'm trying to run a script called sakis3g on a Beaglebone Black to use a USB 3G dongle. This script depends on getent to work.

However, when I run this script, it says that getent is missing. Also, if I type "getent" into the terminal, it's not a recognized command.

There is little information on this because because getent is assumed to be available. How can I install it?

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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Kalle Elmér
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1 Answers1

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It's part of package glibc-utils.

If you have a file, but you don't know which package it belongs to, you can find it in two steps:

whereis getent
getent: /usr/bin/getent

opkg search /usr/bin/getent
glibc-utils - 2.9-r35.3.5 - /usr/bin/getent

You can't pass use just "opkg search getent", because it gives empty result.

If you don't have the file at all, use http://packages.debian.org Angstrom is based on Debian, and searching on debian site should give at similar package name. In this case it's libc-bin debian package.

Tomasz Myrta
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    Can you explain how you found this out? Please add it to your answer. This seems to be a gap in Angstrom's website. I found no way to search the packages for a given file. – slm Oct 02 '13 at 13:46
  • Mine system had getent installed, so it was easier. whereis getent gave me getent: /usr/bin/getent opkg search /usr/bin/getent answered glibc-utils – Tomasz Myrta Oct 02 '13 at 14:24
  • Angstrom is based on debian and packages.debian.org has useful utility to search packages for file name. – Tomasz Myrta Oct 02 '13 at 14:30
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    Thanks for the info, if you feel like incorporating it into your answer that would really make it stand out, and be useful for others that might search for this in the future. – slm Oct 02 '13 at 14:43