Linux 101: A comprehensive list of available Linux services

Alphabetical Listing of Services

Service Name

Required [Yes/No]

Description

Comments

No

Language support

Specifically for the right
to left written languages: Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew

No

Power Management

laptop battery fan monitor

No

Listening daemon

This listens for and
dispatches acpi events from the kernel

No

Internal ADSL switch
control

Use this only if you have
an internal adsl switch for your internet
connection.

No

Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture

The only sound system
actually included in the kernel

No

Periodic Command Scheduler

a task scheduling tool

No

Power Management

Laptop power management

No

Power Management

Yet another laptop battery
extender

No

Ethernet ip address pairing monitor

monitors and logs remote ip
addresses with hostnames.

No

Periodic Command Scheduler

a task scheduling tool

No

Automount services

one of the several automounting
of file systems on demand services. Some of which are distro specific, if the
distro you are using has its own automount system,
do not use this one.

No

The core of Bluetooth

For all Bluetooth
services.

No

boot server

old means for booting diskless clients / thin clients,
the newer method is the zeroconf system.

No

Japanese conversion engine

No

Basic CAPI subsystem

No

Hardware Service

Compaq Raid Array Monitor

No

Hardware Service

Probes and configured CPU
frequency daemon modules

No

Hardware Service

This one will
automatically scale cpu frequency to reduce
overheating. Should be useful for over-clocking.

Yes

Periodic Command Scheduler

THE task scheduling tool.

No

Enables older Linux and
commercial Unix systems to connect to cups server

Useful only if you have to
allow older systems access to the printers

Yes

Common Unix Printing
System

A must have to enable
printing

No

Concurrent Versioning
system

For managing multi user
documents.

No

System Maintenance

This service only cleans
up dynamic desktop directories; it is not needed unless your system crashes
often.

No

The DHCP server

Is your network large
enough that static IPs are a pain, then this will
make it easier, giving you DHCP IP configuration for your network.

No

Smart auto dialer for
dialup networking

This service will connect
to the network on demand, as in you type an email and hit send, it will connect you, send the email and disconnect you.

No

Autoinstall Boot for DKMS

Distro specific tool, for OEM style installations. This allows for a
first boot setting of root password and user name password for regular use. the final configuration of the system.

Yes

Display Manager

The core of the x-server,
required for using any GUI.

No

Digital Network Bind Chrooter

This is a simple bash
script that puts a BIND server in a chroot jail.
Install BIND, launch the script, and restart named

No

Miniserve administration server

Distro specific tool for remote system administration

No

Bluetooth Dialup
networking

No

File system Alteration
Monitor

Logger for all changes to
a file system.

No

Remote access of data.

This server will allow
remote access of user login data, last login date and time. useful for
monitoring employee work habits when you are not in the office, major breach
of security, in that you are effectively publishing confidential company data
online

Yes

ClamAV updater

Automatic updates for ClamAV

Yes

Mouse

Console mode mouse driver

No

Hardware Monitoring System

This monitors for hardware
changes, will alter you to new or altered hardware.

No

Hardware Service

Distro specific hardware
detection and configuration

No

High Availability services

This is intended to
increase the priority of critical servers and services

No

Bluetooth H.I.D. Server

No

HP Linux Printing and
Imaging

Older version of HP
supplied drivers for their all in one products

No

Pital?init, HP office jet printer drivers

Older drivers for HP
office jet, newer drivers are included with cups drivers for the printers

No

Apache Web server

There are two reasons for
this to be on a system, one is it is to be used as a Web server, the other it
will be a Web site development machine. If neither is true, do not install Apache
and this won’t be here.

No

Enterprise Fax?modem
service

This works for class 1 and
class 2 fax modems only. This must be running if you intend to use hylafax to send a fax through the modem. This is not the
only fax tool available.

No

ISDN MPPP bandwidth
on demand

Useful with dialup
networking, this will connect as needed to the network.

No

Identification through TCP
connection

No

secure IMAP server

No

IMAP server

No

Logs TCP, UDP, ICMP
connections with hostname of remote host

Useful network monitoring
tool.

No

POP2 mail server

No

POP3 mail server

No

Encrypted and Authenticated
communications

KLIPS is the kernel half, PLUTO is the user space half. very useful for remote
access situations

Yes

kernel based Packet
Filtering firewall

All good Linux firewalls
are based on this service.

No

Linux Kernel IP virtual
server

This is one of the oldest
networking systems in Linux, not used very much any more.

No

Infra Red Device Interface

Older wireless device
support

Yes

keyboard map

This tells the system
exactly which keyboard you are using.

No

Boot Services

This automatically
regenerates the kernel header in /boot

No

Login Anomaly Detection
System

A tool to track login
attempts and warn of attempted intrusion.

No

Power Management

A tool to reduce power
consumption, extending the life of the laptop battery

No

NNTP service for X?INETD

No

LAN information server

No

Hardware health monitor

This requires that the mainboard of the system supports and has monitoring
systems in place, such as the CPU temperature and voltage monitors.

No

GNU Mailing List Manager

A commonly used mailing
list tool, with a Web interface for administration, written in Python. It
allows list members to communicate by sending an email to one address, and
replying to the same address. Can also be used to send out newsletters /
product updates to those that requested such

No

Interactive Firewall

Special service to allow
for temporary wireless access to the system, will open the iptables firewall for current session only access for
wireless devices, on user approval only, not automatically.

No

Monitoring Service for
software raid

This also is a management
tools for said software raid volumes.

No

Zeroconf DNS configuration tool

Yes

Event monitoring service

This one sends broadcast
messages to all users when needed, like the server is going down for reboot.

Yes

System Monitoring daemon

A lot of system services
require this in order to function

No

MySQL server

If you don’t need this
database, why turn it on?

No

BIND server

yes, the infamous name server.

No

Network Card daemon

This service monitors the
network interface, turning it off or on depending on signal, used mainly for
laptops that may not always be connected.

Yes

Networking

This turns the network
card on, or powers the modem.

No

Network File Share

This enables the clients
to access NFS shares, it is required for the client
machines in an NFS system.

No

The Network File Share
Server

This should only be active
on the network server

No

NFS file locking

This should only be active
if you are using NFS networking / file share functionality.

No

Howl Client

This provides ipv4 link?local
services for zeroconf networks / systems

No

Password and group lookup
service

This works for slow
protocols like N.I.S/Y.P. nist, ldap
and hesiod. It is designed to have a longer timeout
specifically for these protocols

No

Version 4 of the NTP
server

No

number lock light control

This will keep the Numlock activated, turning the keyboard number pad on.

No

compatibility daemon for
OKI4 and compatible winprinters

only useful if you have
one of these printers

No

Bluetooth Personal Area
Networking

For home area Bluetooth
based networking.

Yes

Partition Monitoring

This service keeps track
on free space on mounted partitions. used by most
file system browsers for calculating free space on a given partition.

No

Personal Computer Memory
Card International Association

No

PostgreSQL maintenance

This will automatically
run the vacuum needed by PostgreSQL to reduce disk
space, pulling temp tables from the db as well as deleting temp files created
by PostgreSQL.

No

Secure POP3 server

SSL enabled POP3 server

No

RPC support

Support for those rare
apps that use rpc.

No

The Postgresql
Database Engine

You only need this if you
are either running a postgresql db drives
application or are developing one.

No

email server

asendmail compatible
email server, newer than sendmail itself, becoming
more commonly used than sendmail.

No

Shutdown service for ppp

A clean shutdown service
for PPP tunnels, used when on ups to avoid lock file problems when power
returns to the system.

No

IDS

Intrusion Detection system

No

Process Accounting

A Tracker of active
processes, a waste of resources really

Yes

Assigns rawdevices to blocks for use

This is needed for DVDS,
and oracle DBMS among other things

No

Remote Synchronization

A server to enable remote
synchronization of files in a specified directory tree. Commonly used for
maintaining mirror sites, can also be used to keep company files current for
backup purposes.

No

Network Scanner Service

To provide access to your
scanner from any workstation in the network.

Yes

Firewall

A very good IPTables based firewall.

No

Self Monitor Service

For OS access to smart
enabled devices, this will allow Linux to tell you if the device is starting
to go bad, but relies on the device smart feature for accuracy.

No

Samba Network Services

This provides the samba
services to enable Windows network compatibility.

No

Simple Network management
Protocol

For use in a small [ home
office ] network

No

Sound System

This is the core of the
Linux sound system, nice for desktops, a waste of resources on a server

No

Caching Tool

Used to cache Web pages
and DNS entries

No

OpenSSH server for x?inetd

a run on demand version of
OpenSSH

No

OpenSSH server

Only turn this on if you
require SSH access to your system, and are not going to use the x?inetd version.

No

Concurrent Versioning
system

New alternative to CVS

No

Samba Web Administration
Tool

Web based Samba
administration

Yes

System Logging

A Required service, it
controls all logging on the entire system.

No

Multicast dns responder

For use in zeroconf environments

No

ThinkPad tool

This detects the presence of
the ultrabay for your IBM ThinkPad and starts /
stops the IDE interface as appropriate.

No

NUT daemon and drivers

An uninterrupted power
supply monitoring and reporting tool. This tool reports to a central site to
generate a database on ups statistics.

No

Monitoring tool for UPS

This will monitor the
status of the ups, and shut the system down when it’s running low.

No

Server for Virtual network
computing

Very useful for using VNC
in projects.

No

Remote Administration tool

Distro Agnostic Remote
administration tool. Useful for when the machine will not be physically
accessible at all times; such as Web server farm.

No

Samba Name Server

Required for samba
networking to function. This maps user and group data from the windows
network to the Linux workstation

No

Wine Is Not an Emulator

This enables running MS Windows
executables in Linux. WINE is a limited version of the commercial product
Crossover Office.

No

Control Daemon

This Controls services, it
is not commonly used as the services are generally controlled through the
init process.

Yes

Server for monitoring and
controlling other servers

This is required service,
and it actually reduces CPU load on a server. if you
need SSH, ftp, etc but not all the time, the x?inetd
version will start them on request, even remote request. This allows for them
to be available, but frees the clock?cycles if they are only being used a few
times a day / week.

Yes

X Font Server

If you are going to be
running a GUI at any point in time, this will be required.

No

Name Server for Sun’s YP
server

This is for GLIBC based
NIS / YP networked systems.