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From: AG on 30 May 2010 09:40
Hello list

I have some questions about the use of some of the services that are &
can be initiated at start up. I see these listed via the Administration
menu option, using GNOME on an up-to-date testing Debian system.

1. The following describes my current requirements:

This machine is a single user desktop, provides CUPS server to an
ethernet LAN-connected client Debian machine, and both machines access
the Internet via a dedicated hardware firewall but separately connected
to the pre-firewall hub.

I have no need for bluetooth, sane, power management options, and I
don't have a NFS, nor wireless. This machine runs Tor with Tor's new
friend, polipo, with privoxy continuing to be updated but seemingly no
longer required by Tor.

I have KDE4 installed and Xfce4 and I use GNOME daily. KDE4 requires MySQL.

There is an external USB drive connected to my machine which I access
frequently so is mounted at boot up.

2. Services currently activated at start up (according to GNOME):

alsa-utils - audi settings (I'm okay with that)
anacron - actions scheduler (needed)
atd - actions scheduler (needed)
avahi-daemon - multicast DNS service discovery (do I need this?)
cpudfrequtils (shows useful info when called up with hardinfo)
cron - actions scheduler (needed)
cups - printer service (needed)
dirmngr - ? (no idea - sounds reasonable but ...?)
exim4 - mail agent (maybe needed for POP3 and accessing GMail from my
email client?)
hal - ? (needed, I think)
kerneloops - automated crash reports support (can't be bad)
lm-sensors - hardware monitor (probably a good thing)
loadcpufreq - ? (maybe worth having enabled?)
mysql - database server (KDE4 seems to need it and it's handy if I
needed a decent dBase)
polipo - ? (now seemingly relied on by Tor, which I do want)
portmap - rpc mapper (wasn't this the bette noire for crackers scanning
ports? Anyway, do I need it for mounting/ accessing the external USB
drive?)
pyro-nsd - ? (seemingly necessary for Python calls & as I have a number
of Python utilities and libraries loaded, so will keep that)
rsyslog - ? (systems logging - needed)
sudo - ? (needed)
tor - ? (needed)

3. Questions:

3.1. Do I need anacron *and* atd *and* cron? Do they all work together
or am I wasting resources, etc., by having all going? How do I figure
out which one is the safest to stop?

3.2. Given the description of my system requirements, do I need to run
services like:
* avahi-daemon
* dirmngr
* exim4
* portmap

Thanks for any opinions you can offer.

AG


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From: Anand Sivaram on 30 May 2010 11:40
On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 18:53, AG <computing.account(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hello list
>
> I have some questions about the use of some of the services that are & can
> be initiated at start up. I see these listed via the Administration menu
> option, using GNOME on an up-to-date testing Debian system.
>
> 1. The following describes my current requirements:
>
> This machine is a single user desktop, provides CUPS server to an ethernet
> LAN-connected client Debian machine, and both machines access the Internet
> via a dedicated hardware firewall but separately connected to the
> pre-firewall hub.
>
> I have no need for bluetooth, sane, power management options, and I don't
> have a NFS, nor wireless. This machine runs Tor with Tor's new friend,
> polipo, with privoxy continuing to be updated but seemingly no longer
> required by Tor.
>
> I have KDE4 installed and Xfce4 and I use GNOME daily. KDE4 requires
> MySQL.
>
> There is an external USB drive connected to my machine which I access
> frequently so is mounted at boot up.
>
> 2. Services currently activated at start up (according to GNOME):
>
> alsa-utils - audi settings (I'm okay with that)
> anacron - actions scheduler (needed)
> atd - actions scheduler (needed)
> avahi-daemon - multicast DNS service discovery (do I need this?)
> cpudfrequtils (shows useful info when called up with hardinfo)
> cron - actions scheduler (needed)
> cups - printer service (needed)
> dirmngr - ? (no idea - sounds reasonable but ...?)
> exim4 - mail agent (maybe needed for POP3 and accessing GMail from my email
> client?)
> hal - ? (needed, I think)
> kerneloops - automated crash reports support (can't be bad)
> lm-sensors - hardware monitor (probably a good thing)
> loadcpufreq - ? (maybe worth having enabled?)
> mysql - database server (KDE4 seems to need it and it's handy if I needed a
> decent dBase)
> polipo - ? (now seemingly relied on by Tor, which I do want)
> portmap - rpc mapper (wasn't this the bette noire for crackers scanning
> ports? Anyway, do I need it for mounting/ accessing the external USB
> drive?)
> pyro-nsd - ? (seemingly necessary for Python calls & as I have a number of
> Python utilities and libraries loaded, so will keep that)
> rsyslog - ? (systems logging - needed)
> sudo - ? (needed)
> tor - ? (needed)
>
> 3. Questions:
>
> 3.1. Do I need anacron *and* atd *and* cron? Do they all work together or
> am I wasting resources, etc., by having all going? How do I figure out
> which one is the safest to stop?
>
> 3.2. Given the description of my system requirements, do I need to run
> services like:
> * avahi-daemon
> * dirmngr
> * exim4
> * portmap
>
> Thanks for any opinions you can offer.
>
> AG
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a
> subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org
> Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4C0266CA.3080406(a)gmail.com
>
>
3.1 Do not touch cron/anacron since they are used by logrotate etc.
3.2 You may disable them in case you with to so that at least your bootup
may be faster.
From: Camaleón on 30 May 2010 12:00
On Sun, 30 May 2010 14:23:22 +0100, AG wrote:

> This machine is a single user desktop, provides CUPS server to an
> ethernet LAN-connected client Debian machine, and both machines access
> the Internet via a dedicated hardware firewall but separately connected
> to the pre-firewall hub.
>
> I have no need for bluetooth, sane, power management options, and I
> don't have a NFS, nor wireless. This machine runs Tor with Tor's new
> friend, polipo, with privoxy continuing to be updated but seemingly no
> longer required by Tor.
>
> I have KDE4 installed and Xfce4 and I use GNOME daily. KDE4 requires
> MySQL.

KDE4 requires MySQl? What an "excentric" requirement >:-)

> There is an external USB drive connected to my machine which I access
> frequently so is mounted at boot up.
>
> 2. Services currently activated at start up (according to GNOME):

> avahi-daemon - multicast DNS service discovery (do I need this?)

No, you can safely disable that service.

> dirmngr - ? (no idea - sounds reasonable but ...?)

***
Dirmngr is a server for managing and downloading certificate revocation
lists (CRLs) for X.509 certificates and for downloading the certificates
themselves. Dirmngr also handles OCSP requests as an alternative to CRLs.
Dirmngr is either invoked internally by gpgsm (from GnuPG 2) or when
running as a system daemon through the dirmngr-client tool.
***

I would keep that service on.

> hal - ? (needed, I think)

Yes, keep it enabled.

> kerneloops - automated crash reports support (can't be bad)

Not needed, AFAIK you can safely disable.

> lm-sensors - hardware monitor (probably a good thing)

Yes, it monitors temperature sensors (motherboard, hard disks...)

> loadcpufreq - ? (maybe worth having enabled?)

Yes, it allows putting the processor into different load status (economy,
full-load, etc..)

> portmap - rpc mapper (wasn't this the bette noire for crackers scanning
ports?

AFAIK, needed for running RPC services (such NFS).

> Anyway, do I need it for mounting/ accessing the external USB drive?)

I guess no. That is a task for udev/devicekit.

> pyro-nsd - ? (seemingly necessary for Python calls & as I have a number
> of Python utilities and libraries loaded, so will keep that)

This one I dunno.

> 3. Questions:
>
> 3.1. Do I need anacron *and* atd *and* cron? Do they all work together
> or am I wasting resources, etc., by having all going? How do I figure
> out which one is the safest to stop?

apt-cache show cron
apt-cache show anacron
apt-cache show at

To display what are they for and their priority. I would keep them all.

> 3.2. Given the description of my system requirements, do I need to run
> services like:
> * avahi-daemon
> * dirmngr
> * exim4
> * portmap
>
> Thanks for any opinions you can offer.

Avahi-daemon no, for sure. The others maybe. You need a mail agent
(exim4, postfix or any other lightweight MTA, but at least one has to be
installed). For dirmngr and portmap I'm not sure :-?

Greetings,

--
Camaleón


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From: Andrei Popescu on 30 May 2010 12:30
On Sun,30.May.10, 14:23:22, AG wrote:
>
> 2. Services currently activated at start up (according to GNOME):
>
> alsa-utils - audi settings (I'm okay with that)
> anacron - actions scheduler (needed)
> atd - actions scheduler (needed)
> avahi-daemon - multicast DNS service discovery (do I need this?)

This I always purge, but could be useful for automatic service
discovery.

> cpudfrequtils (shows useful info when called up with hardinfo)
> cron - actions scheduler (needed)
> cups - printer service (needed)
> dirmngr - ? (no idea - sounds reasonable but ...?)
> exim4 - mail agent (maybe needed for POP3 and accessing GMail from
> my email client?)

No, it's a SMTP server, meant to receive mail on port 25, for example
from cron. You could put it to good use to relay mail you send to your
SMTP server (gmail or ISP), assuming you don't use webmail only.

cron can do without a MTA now and if you don't ever read root's mail you
can get rid of it, but I'd rather recommend reading root's mail :)

You could also replace it with a forwarding MTA, that doesn't run as a
daemon, if you don't mind sending root's mail via the internet.

> hal - ? (needed, I think)
> kerneloops - automated crash reports support (can't be bad)
> lm-sensors - hardware monitor (probably a good thing)
> loadcpufreq - ? (maybe worth having enabled?)
> mysql - database server (KDE4 seems to need it and it's handy if I

I think you can disable it without affecting the functionality needed by
KDE. You won't be able to remove/purge it unless you remove big parts of
KDE.

> needed a decent dBase)
> polipo - ? (now seemingly relied on by Tor, which I do want)
> portmap - rpc mapper (wasn't this the bette noire for crackers

This I always purge.

> scanning ports? Anyway, do I need it for mounting/ accessing the
> external USB drive?)
> pyro-nsd - ? (seemingly necessary for Python calls & as I have a
> number of Python utilities and libraries loaded, so will keep that)
> rsyslog - ? (systems logging - needed)

This one is very good for troubleshooting.

> sudo - ? (needed)
> tor - ? (needed)
>
> 3. Questions:
>
> 3.1. Do I need anacron *and* atd *and* cron? Do they all work
> together or am I wasting resources, etc., by having all going? How
> do I figure out which one is the safest to stop?

anacron is useful if your machine is not on all the time, especially
during the night, when most cronjobs are set to run.

atd is useful if you want to schedule one-time jobs, unlike cron, which
is for jobs which have to be repeated on certain intervals.

Regards,
Andrei
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