Four steps to Linux service management
IMHO, there are four parts to managing services in most linux distributions.
First you need to decide what services you really need. The less software you have running on your desktop or server, the easier it is to maintain long term. This is important both for security and in terms of allocating valuable resources.
Use the netstat command to check which services are listening to external ports, and the ps command to see the global process list for your server
Secondly find out how to control the service
- under CentOS, use the service command
- under Debian, use update-rc.d
Third, you may need to enable some services in the distribution configuration. For example under Ubuntu, to enable the Apache server edit /etc/default/apache2 to allow that to be run by default
Fourth tweak automated running services.
- under CentOS, use the chkconfig command
- under Debian, install the sysv-rc-conf console based gui
That should help you get started on working out what is important to have running on your Linux server or desktop.
Liz Quilty – Velofille
Brandon Checketts
ben.geek.nz
