Re: Forgot something simple...


Subject: Re: Forgot something simple...
From: Murray Todd Williams (MurrayTodd@mac.com)
Date: Sat Sep 01 2001 - 07:19:20 MDT


It's broken into two parts: those that are started up by xinetd whenever
a request comes in (thus preventing the system from keeping a zillion
daemons up and running all the time--they just start up demand) and
those who start up at system boot-up and are always on. Telnet and ftp
are pften examples of the first group, httpd (Apache) and sshd are often
examples of the second group.

For the first group, you go into /etc/xinetd.d and there's a single file
for every service. Find the service you want, edit the file, and change
the "disabled = yes" to "disabled = no" to make the service available.

For the second group, the startups are found in /etc/rc.d. The startup
scripts are found in /etc/rc.d/init.d but whether they start in any
particular run-level is determined by the rc1.d, rc2.d, rc3.d, etc.
directories. Here you want to use a tool to list and edit the run-level
services. There are three ways to do this: (I'm assuming a Red Hat
system because I still can't get Yellow-Dog to install on my Mac.)

1: Linuxconf. At risk of starting a flame-war, this is one of the worst
and most confusing, badly designed utilities I've ever seen in my life.
But it is ubiquitous. I avoid using it at all costs.

2: tksysv. This configuration utility has been around for years and
years and years. It was part of the original "control-panel" program in
the days of Red Hat 3.0.3 (when I first got into Linux) and it works
rather well.

3: KDE's SysV Init Editor: Found in the "System" menu (run KDE as root)
this is basically tksysv rewritten to be prettier. I just now found it,
but it looks nice.

A couple of notes: First, do some studying to understand what's really
going on with these systems. Learn the difference between Run Level 3
and Run Level 5 (neat trivia: Run Level 0 = system halt, Run Level 1 =
Single User (maintenance) mode, Run Level 3 = text only mode, Run Level
5 = X Windows startup mode, Run Level 6 = system reboot.)

Next note: understand the difference between having a network service
configured to launch in daemon mode and having it take requests through
inetd (now xinetd). Many services like telnetd, ftpd, httpd, sshd, etc.
can be configured to do either, but they usually default to one or the
other.

Happy Adventures!

Murray Todd Williamms

On Friday, August 31, 2001, at 11:56 PM, Brian Watson wrote:

> Alright...what's the command to select system services, telnet, ssh,
> etc, etc. It lists all of the xinetd services plus others. It's a
> menu?? Help here. :(
>
> --Brian
>



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