[ale] Which /etc/services to allow for secure web browsing &email ?

[Courtney Thomas]

Thank you for waving me off, Jim and Michael   :-)

I wasn't going to destroy or eliminate /etc/services, just try substituting something for it while preserving the original....
but I appreciate the alert anyway.

Any other guidance would also be appreciated.

Cordially,

Courtney
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Kinney 
  To: mhw at wittsend.com ; ale at ale.org 
  Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2008 4:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [ale] Which /etc/services to allow for secure web browsing &email ?


  DITTO on Mike's note!! Leave it alone. Bad things will happen.
  bad things...


  2008/12/20 Michael H. Warfield <mhw at wittsend.com>

    On Sat, 2008-12-20 at 11:48 -0500, Courtney Thomas wrote:
    > My services file has thousands of entries. I assume those
    > without # at the beginning are enabled.


           No.  Not correct.  /etc/services is merely a lookup file mapping
    service names to well known port numbers and protocols.  It, in and of
    itself, doesn't enable anything.  Sort of like what the /etc/hosts file
    does for looking up systems.


    > What I was thinking was to make a copy of it and edit out almost everything
    > or
    > possibly better yet,.... create a new minimized one rather than trying to
    > digest
    > the myriad entries .

    > What minimum should remain to permit secure web browsing and email  ?


           Highly recommended that you do not go down this road or every service
    that uses getservicebyname() may potentially be broken.  Do not do this.


    > What services am I overlooking with this idea that would possibly be a
    > mistake  ?


           The file doesn't do what you think it does therefore you don't
    understand the function of the file thus making tampering with it a
    mistake.

    > Appreciatively,

    > Courtney

           Mike
    --
    Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
      /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
      NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
     PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471        | possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!


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  -- 
  -- 
  James P. Kinney III               




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