This is a list of services that start by default on runlevel 5 of a desktop. I've already disabled obvious things such as infra red - are there any more obvious ones that can go? What do things such as kudzu do? Is there a list to hand without querying documentation for each individually?

kudzu
syslog
netfs
network
random
rawdevices
keytable
atd
gpm
autofs
iptables
sshd
portmap
nfslock
sendmail
rhnsd
crond
anacron
httpd
xfs
xinetd
vsftpd
tomcat3

Cheers, Dave.

kudzu is a RH (only?) tool that is used for auto hardware detection and ( is supposed) to make your life easier with things related to that, such as editing fstab and so on. I am always eager to suggest dropping that once you've reached a level where you feel you no longer benefit from that (you like mounting and umounting your devices to know what's doing what).

Sendmail, well that ones pretty straight up If you don't have a mailserver setup on your box, and completely use your ISP's servers, you don't need that.

httpd, this is Apache. If you aren't using it, or aren't running an http server, you can disable it..

These are just quickies I'm glancing it over and replying as I see em...

GPM, this is mouse in a console, if you don't use your mouse in your console ever, you can disable this usually.

HTH

Cool

-Kudzu is the hw installer,detecter
-syslog is the daemon that controls log files for the system.
-netfs is for network filesystems.
-network is the network service, for network connectivity
-rhnsd is for the redhat network, for up2date and such
-xfs is the x font server
-xinetd is for xinetd, which runs other independent services, samba, some ftps, etc.
-vsftpd is very secure ftp daemon which is a ftp server
-tomcat3 is a web server like apache
-atd is like a cron server for scheduled tasks
-iptables is a built in firewall
-crond is another task scheduler
-nfslock is for nfs filesystems, like native linux/unix network shares
-autofs is for automount i think
-random maybe the random number generator
-portmap is for nfs as well

That should be most of them..
basically if you dont use it you can disable it.
Not running ftp? disable vsftpd
You running the gui? if not disable all gui related services
This machine on a network? If not disable the network service.
Just record whatever you disable, as certain services rely on other services for information and configuration...

Good Luck

Thanks folks - I hate services running I'm not needing.

Dave