RH7.1 question.

[Robert G. Brown]

On Thu, 24 May 2001 alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com wrote:

>
> hi GSBCP
>
> yes.... xinetd.d is a mess...

Not exactly a mess -- it is just different.  In one sense every change
like this is egregious -- things were perfectly easy to manage with
/etc/inetd.conf and /etc/rc.[0-6] (BSD/SunOS-style) if you knew what you
were doing.  On the other hand, things are perfectly easy to manage with
/etc/rc.d/init.d and /etc/xinetd.d, and the layout is arguably more
self-consistent.  If you know what you are doing.  The only problem is
learning about the differences.

The GOOD thing about 7.1 is it forces you to deal with services to some
extent during a standard install, and its standard install configuration
is a firewalled configuration with pretty much only sshd punched
through.  This is actually just about right for a node or a non-server
desktop anyway.

chkconfig --list now lists the boot-configuration status of xinetd.d
based services AS WELL AS init.d based services.  So it is easy to see
when services are on or off.  One thing to remember is that one has to
send xinetd either SIGUSR1 or SIGUSR2 to force a soft or hard restart
after reconfiguring to force the changes to take effect (read man xinetd
to see the difference).  Or you can follow the Red Hat Way and do
/etc/init.d/xinetd restart.

Don't get me wrong -- I still find quite a bit of RH's boot and services
and configuration layout immensely annoying.  In particular, they seem
to have mixed configuration scripts, configuration data, and boot
scripts up in strange ways.  In many ways I vastly prefer the "old days"
when all the configuration parameters could be set by hand in a few
flatfiles in /etc (toplevel).  I also think that things like
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts are an abomination and offense in the
eyes of the Penguin -- these are not things intended to be managed by
human hand, which takes RH farther and farther from the Unix Way (front
end all you like, but leave the basic interface hand-manageable).

Still, Unix has always been expert-friendly, and this just adds
yet-another-bloody-interface to learn to manage, with a few advantages
and a few disadvantages.

Sigh.

   rgb

>
> turn off all of them thingies....
> 	you have to explicitly say "disable = yes" in each file
> 	in /etc/xinetd.d/*   to turn that service off
>
> 	- make a set of changes...tar it up and copy it to
> 	the other servers...
>
> from www.linux-Sec.net/harden.gwif.html, ( middle of the page )
> you can find xinetd tutorials/info:
>
>   http://www.macsecurity.org/resources/xinetd/tutorial.shtml
>   http://cwrulug.cwru.edu/archive/cwrulug/200011/0043.html
>   http://www.synack.net/xinetd
>
> have fun
> alvin
>
>
> On Thu, 24 May 2001, Georgia Southern Beowulf Cluster Project wrote:
>
> > Hello Everyone,
> >
> > I'm assembling a new cluster and I want to know what people's experiences
> > are with the new RedHat 7.1.  I've assembled a couple with RH6.2, but I'm
> > noticing a fair amount of differences with the 7.x line of RH.  Especially,
> > can someone point me in a direction to find good documentation for xinet.d.
> > I can't seem to find much through google.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Wesley Wells
> > _________________________________________________________________
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>
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-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu