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

[Ed Cashin]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Courtney Thomas
<courtneycthomas at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> My services file has thousands of entries. I assume those
> without # at the beginning are enabled.
>
> 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  ?

As others have pointed out, /etc/services is a database, really,
and not so much a configuration file.  It's a list of services and the
related ports.

But to answer your question a little, I'd like to recommend the
mini_httpd web server.

  http://www.acme.com/software/mini_httpd/

It's stable, secure, old, and practical.  It supports SSL and
is pretty easy to master.  With that under your belt you'd be
able to move beyond minimal (e.g. onto apache) if you need
to.

For email service, it depends on what you want.  It's a bit
complicated, and I am having trouble coming up with anything
simple that would provide SMTP and IMAP, for example, in
a secure way.  Email and security is a complex and interesting
and/or frustrating topic!

Oops.

You might not have been trying to provide web browsing and
email to clients but to yourself.  Oh well, I'll hit "send" anyway.

-- 
  Ed Cashin <ecashin at noserose.net>