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

[Jim Kinney]

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
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>
>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
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