This page last modified: Jun 27 2007
title:Daemons: Fedora, Linux list of daemons with descriptions keywords:daemon,demon,service,services,disable,list,boot,start,stop,fedora,linux,init,xinetd,chkconfig,ntsysv Description:Full list of all Fedora Core 3 daemons, with their recommended state and a description of each. For a more up-to-date and comprehensive list of daemons, install Webmin. Webmin also allows you to easily enable/disable and start/stop daemons. http://www.webmin.com/ The list below is old (perhaps from 2006) and may only apply to Fedora Core 4 and earlier distributions. After the name of each daemon is my recommended state: on for started (enabled) and off for stopped (disabled). My recommendation is based on the kinds of services most people run (e.g. a graphical desktop machine in a home/office setting, with broadband network). The minimal set of daemons for a graphical desktop machine browsing the web and reading email is: xfs, cron, network, and syslog. You'll probably also want cups, haldaemon, iptables, and messagebus. If you are running a graphical desktop (KDE or Gnome) you must have xfs running. Is it a good idea to have cron and syslog running as well. You'll need network running to have your network active (unless you are using dial up). As far as I know, your computer will "run" without any of these daemons. The computer won't have a graphical desktop or network, but it will be running. By the same token, nearly all of these can be enabled with no problem. I don't know of a GUI application to manage daemons. Use ntsysv or chkconfig. You'll have to use a terminal window, and you must be logged in as root. chkconfig name <on|off|reset> For example: chkconfig acpid off List available daemons: chkconfig --list acpid - off Advanced Configuration and Power Interface event daemon. Shutdown applications if the power fails. aep1000 - off AEP1000/AEP2000 coprocessor driver. anacron - off Cron-like, but doesn't assume that the machine is always on. apmd - off Advanced Power Management. Only on for your UPS to shutdown your computer when the power fails. atd - off Run jobs queued for later execution by "at". autofs - off Auto mount CDs and other file system-like devices and media. bcm5820 - off Hardware cryptographic accelerator support for the BCM5820 Cryptonet driver. cpuspeed - on for laptops, off for desktop computers. crond - on Runs regularly scheduled system tasks, e.g. a task that runs once a day. cups - on Common Unix Printing System. Necesary if you want to print. cups-config-daemon - off(?) Works with HAL to dynamically manage printer configuration. Might overwrite /etc/cups/cupsd.conf. See: http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L301 cxoffice - off Probably runs automatically if you have Crossover Office and run an installed Windows application. dc_client - off Distributed session cache client proxy. dc_server - off Distributed session cache server. gpm - off unless you want mouse cut/paste on the non-graphical console. haldaemon - on Auto-recognizes various kinds of hardware and mountable media. httpd - off The Apache web server. Only on if you need a web server. iptables - on The firewall. irda - off Infrared wireless device daemon. For PDA, etc. irqbalance - on If you have a multiprocessor system. Off on all single cpu machines. isdn - off Only used if you have an ISDN network connection. kudzu - off Detects and configures new and/or changed hardware on a system. Can be run manually if you need it. lisa - off Scans your network to provide information about hosts on your network, perhaps including Windows shares. Some versions have security problems. Part of kdenetwork utilities. lm_sensors - off Monitor system sensors such as CPU and motherboard temperature. mDNSResponder - off Publishes and browses available network services via Zeronconf (aka "Rendezvous"). mdmonitor - off Part of the mdadm package to administer software RAID. See rpm -qi mdadm mdmpd - off Monitor MD multipath devices, e.g. disks with more than one controller. Apparently only for RAID arrays. messagebus - on Provides a communication bus for dbus. Programs talk to other programs. Probably leave enabled. microcode_ctl - on for Intel CPUs, off for AMD processors. Only works on Intel CPUs (doesn't work with AMD). I'm not clear what the updated microcode does. You can find out your cpu info on Linux systems with this command: cat /proc/cpuinfo More info at: http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/ mysqld - off A crash prone, slow, non-standard SQL database server. named - off A DNS server. netdump - off Only for diagnosing kernel crashes. netfs - off Automatically Mounts and unmounts all Network File System (NFS), SMB/CIFS (Lan Manager/Windows), and NCP (NetWare) mount points. This is the only thing you need if you are an NFS client (e.g. not an NFS server), since netfs will run any other necessary daemons. Netfs may automatically handle everything necessary for the other (non-NFS) protocols, but I've only tested it with NFS. Disable this if you don't use NFS, Samba, or NetWare. netplugd - off Automatic recognition of active/inactive network interfaces. network - on if you have an Ethernet connection. Off for modem users. nfs - off Network File System. Only on to allows other unix systems to share your hard drive (volume, file system). Not necessary if you are a client to a shared volume. nfslock - off Provides NFS file locking functionality. Disable if you aren't using NFS. Required by nfs. nifd - off Network interface monitor. Calls mDNSResponder if your IP address changes. nscd - off Nscd provides cacheing for the passwd(5), group(5), and hosts(5) databases. ntpd - off Network Time Protocol. Easier to put this in cron: /usr/sbin/ntpdate -s -u ntp1.virginia.edu pcmcia - on for laptop users with PCMCIA cards. Off for desktop machines. portmap - off Netfs will start portmap as necessary. Portmap is DARPA port to RPC program number mapper. Required if you are an nfs client or server (although netfs starts portmap for clients, so you don't need it explicitly enabled). If you're not using NFS or NIS, then you should disable portmap. Some (?) versions of portmap are highly insecure. You can run `rpcinfo -p $hostname` against your system to see what additional services it is providing. More info at: http://cert.uni-stuttgart.de/archive/suse/security/2003/04/msg00141.html postgresql - off The most powerful, fastest, easiest to use SQL database. Robust and has excellent documentation. psacct - off Daemon used by several utilities for monitoring process activities, including ac, lastcomm, accton, and sa. readahead - off The readahead process preloads the buffer cache with files that might be paged in one 'page demand triggered' read at a time. This can speed things up of boxes with enough memory. Config file is: /etc/readahead.files readahead_early - off See readahead. Config file is: /etc/readahead.early.files rhnsd - off Queries the Red Hat Network for updates and information. rpcgssd - off Part of the nfs-utils package. Required by nfs. rpcidmapd - off Required if you are running an nfs server. rpcsvcgssd - off Required by nfs. saslauthd - off unless you are using plaintext SASL password authentication sendmail - off Part of the mail server. Only on if you machine is mail server. sgi_fam - off FAM is a file monitoring daemon that detects when files have changed and then performs some action. smartd - off SMART Disk Monitoring Daemon. Monitor hard drive and predict failure. smb - off Samba Windows file sharing server. snmpd - off Respond to SNMP request packets. Probably only on if another machine is monitoring the status of your machine. snmptrapd - off Receive and log SNMP trap messages. SNMP is for monitoring system status. spamassassin - off Mail filter to identify spam using text analysis. Only for mail servers(?) squid - off Proxy caching server for web and ftp. sshd - off SSH daemon. On if you want to ssh into your machine. syslog - on Handles logging of system events. It is good to leave this turned on. Logs autorotate and will not fill your hard drive. tux - off Apparently a web server. vncserver - off Remote desktop sharing. winbind - off Related to Samba. xfs - on X Windows font server. Use by X windows to support a graphical desktop (including KDE and Gnome) xinetd - on Super daemon (aka super server), launches network related daemons on demand. ypbind - off Disabled unless you are using and NIS server, usually for password authentication yppasswdd - off yppasswdd is the RPC server that lets users change their passwords when you are using NIS (a.k.a. YP). ypserv - off ypserv is an implementation of the standard NIS/YP networking protocol. ypxfrd - off ypxfrd should be started in addition to ypserv to accelerate transferring yp maps. yum - off Yellow dog Updater, Modified. Updates software packages (rpm and/or apt packages). Some people run it nightly, some run it manually. Xinetd services in this list are typically all off. Most are totally unnecessary and several have been (or are) security holes. For a few years, Red Hat and Fedora had ftp (or vsftp) as an xinetd service. However, now vsftp is its own service (see /etc/rc.d/init.d/). chargen - generates characters chargen-udp - udp version of chargen cups-lpd daytime - gives out the current system time daytime-udp - udp version of daytime echo - echo characters back to the client echo-udp - upb version of echo ktalk - KDE version of the talk server rsync time - RFC 868 time server. time-udp - udb version of time Other lists of Linux daemons. These lists may be out of date: http://www.hosef.org/wiki/DisablingLinuxServices http://members.cox.net/tuxxer/services-gui.html