Chapter 4. Starting Servers

The bulk of this book ( specifically , Parts II and III) deals with the operation of a wide variety of servers. These programs should normally be accessible at all times once a computer has booted , aside from any scheduled downtime or restrictions you might impose for security reasons. It's therefore important that you understand how servers are started. Without this knowledge, you might find yourself unable to start a server once you've installed it, or unable to restart a server after making changes to its configuration.

Fortunately, in many cases Linux configures things so that a server starts automatically after it's installed, or at least once you reboot the computer after installing the server. There are three major methods you can use to start a server on a regular basis: via System V (SysV) startup scripts; via a super server, such as inetd or xinetd ; or via a local startup script. You can always configure any of these methods by manually editing the appropriate configuration files or scripts. With most distributions, you can also accomplish the task through the use of GUI tools. This chapter covers all these methods of starting servers. Subsequent chapters refer back to this one to convey how a specific server is most commonly started.