Section 24.8. Networking Services (Topic 1.113)


24.8. Networking Services (Topic 1.113)

24.8.1. Objective 1: Configure and Manage inetd, xinetd, and Related Services

  • inetd is the Internet superdaemon; it listens on multiple inbound ports and launches the appropriate child daemon to service the requests.

  • inetd uses TCP wrappers (tcpd) to add access security to services .

  • inetd is configured in /etc/inetd.conf.

  • You can eliminate an inbound service managed by inetd simply by commenting out its declaration in /etc/inetd.conf and restarting or signaling inetd.

  • TCP wrappers allow the administrator to define access rules for hosts. The configuration files are /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny.

24.8.2. Objective 2: Operate and Perform Basic Configuration of Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)

  • Sendmail is a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA).

  • Sendmail is configured in /etc/sendmail.cf. This file is generally regarded as difficult to configure.

  • The "smart host" parameter is used to configure a local Sendmail daemon to transfer mail to a site's official mail system.

  • /etc/aliases is a file that stores aliases for inbound mail addresses; it can redirect mail to one or more users.

  • Whenever /etc/aliases is modified, newaliases must be executed.

  • Each user can forward his own mail using a .forward file, containing the forwarding email address, in his home directory.

  • Outbound mail that is trapped due to a network or other problem will remain queued; it can be examined using the mailq command.

24.8.3. Objective 3: Operate and Perform Basic Configuration of Apache

  • Apache is configured using httpd.conf, srm.conf, and access.conf. On some installations, these may all be combined into httpd.conf.

  • The configuration files contain configuration directives, one per line, consisting of a keyword and an argument list. For example:

     DocumentRoot /home/httpd/html 

    sets the root directory for HTML files on the system.

  • Apache is typically started at boot time using the system's startup methods.

24.8.4. Objective 4: Properly Manage the NFS and Samba Daemons

24.8.4.1. NFS
  • Traditional Unix file sharing is done with NFS, originally developed by Sun Microsystems.

  • NFS is a client/server package, and any system can hold both roles simultaneously.

  • Exporting (sharing) a local filesystem with NFS is done by including a line in the /etc/exports file, consisting of a directory and list of allowed systems, along with NFS options. For example:

     /usr    (ro) orion.mydomain.com(rw) /home   *.mydomain.com(rw) 

  • Remote NFS filesystems are mounted using the mount command:

     # mount -t nfs server1:/home /mnt/server1 

  • NFS is typically started at boot time using the system's startup methods.

24.8.4.2. Samba
  • The Samba suite implements Server Message Block (SMB) protocols used on Microsoft and IBM LANs.

  • smbd handles file and printer sharing and authentication.

  • nmbd implements the WINS service.

  • Samba is configured in /etc/smb.conf. The file consists of sections, each with a series of keyword = value pairs.

  • Samba 2.0 and later comes with a web-based configuration tool called SWAT; it is usually configured to be monitored by inetd.

24.8.5. Objective 5: Set Up and Configure Basic DNS Services

  • DNS is the distributed database of name-to-IP-address translations.

24.8.5.1. The resolver
  • The resolver is a library used by networked applications when a domain name needs to be translated into an IP address.

  • The resolver uses local files, NIS, and DNS to resolve hostnames as directed by /etc/resolv.conf.

24.8.5.2. Domain registration
  • Domain names are assigned through a registration process with one of the domain name registrars on the Internet.

  • The DNS server daemon is named, part of the BIND package.

  • named can be configured to speed up a local system by acting as a nonauthoritative caching-only name server.

  • named is configured using /etc/named.conf.

  • The nslookup, host, and dig utilities can be used to retrieve information from DNS servers.

  • BIND Version 4 and Version 8 have significantly different configuration file formats, although the information contained in the files is similar.

24.8.6. Objective 7: Set Up Secure Shell (OpenSSH)

  • See "Objective 4: Secure Shell (SSH)" in Chapter 40.



LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell
LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell (OReilly))
ISBN: 0596005288
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 257

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