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The process may not be hard, but knowing how to stop, start, restart and check the status of services is absolutely critical to a Linux server. '''Aside from learning to trouble-shoot problems''' by checking the status of running services, '''understanding how to manage services is critical to help protect a Linux server from penetration''' (this term is referred to as "'''Hardening a system'''"). Sometimes it is "what we don't know" that can harm us. One key element in hardening a computer system is to disable non essential networkng services to allow IDSs ('''Intrusion Detection Systems''') to focus on a narrower range of policy violations. A Debian-based penetration testing distribution called '''Kali''' (formerly referred to as '''"BackTrax"''') allows sysadmins and security professionals to identify vulnerabilities in their computer systems, and thus improve (harden) their systems against penetration. Learning to monitor the status, enable and disable networking services underlies the '''Backtrax''' motto: '''''"The quieter you are, then more you will hear..."'''''<br><br>

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We have seen that maintaining unneeded '''packages can be a security risk''' due to the unnecessary increase in the complexity of your system. Similarly, it is also unnecessarily hazardous, and even more so, to leave unneeded services running. In this investigation, we will learn how to '''control services, and turn off those services that we think are not necessary to help reduce security risks'''.