i'm running rh8 on my home computer. this is simply my main pc for home computing with no fancy server activity. i simply want to be able to run my browser, ftp software, messenger, file sharing progs, etc. i don't want anything coming into my linux box other than what is necessesary.

where can i find out which ports are open, and which ones i can close?

thanks for the help

issue the command

netstat -nl

and look for the listening connections.

If you really dont want any of those servers then you can close their ports....look into inetd or possible xinetd.

have fun.

hio

first you run the netstat command to look for listning ports
"netstat -ant"
"netstat -plut"
(also u can look for open connections use "socklist")
now u can close all unused ports in /etc/inetd.conf
(check inetd with this "grep -v ^# /etc/inetd.conf")
for all other things u can stop unused services with
chkconfig or normally the better way is u uninstal it
when u want to make secure ure computer install iptables
a statefull inspection firewall at http://www.netfilter.org/
also look at www.chkrootkit.org for local sec

if u dont know which port is for which services check /etc/services
or look at www.snort.org at there portdatabase

i it helps greets
(sry for my english)

On my machine I have very very few ports open; if you don't have any internet connectivity (and don't need it), you probably don't need to have any ports open

ports are only 'open' because software is listening on them for inbound activity. If you don't run any servers, no ports will be open (filesharing is a service and a fairly dangerous one, too).

Rather than 'closing ports' (I assume you mean at the fw level) why not eliminate all services?

i tried editing the services at runlevel 3,4,5, but some are still running. i'm unsure of which i can and can not close.

i just checked netstat, and i must have at least 30 ports open. A lot of them are STREAMS? and all Paths are to /etc. Is this good or bad?

check to see if xinetd is still starting at boot. It will launch certain other services as needed and could be why you're seeing stuff running.

Just comment out everything you don't need running in /etc/rc.d/ and
/etc/inetd.conf or /etc/xinetd.conf

If having the X11 port open makes you queasy run "startx -- -nolisten tcp"

Good luck!