I am running a RHEL 5.3 guest in 3.5.
This is our first RHEL 5 guest. Are there any services thar really arent needed in a a vmware esx environment?
acpid 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
anacron 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
apmd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
atd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
auditd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
autofs 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
avahi-daemon 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
avahi-dnsconfd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
bluetooth 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
conman 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
cpuspeed 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
crond 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
cups 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
firstboot 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
gpm 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
haldaemon 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
hidd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
hplip 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
ip6tables 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
iptables 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
irqbalance 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
kudzu 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
lm_sensors 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
lvm2-monitor 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
mcstrans 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
mdmonitor 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
messagebus 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
microcode_ctl 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
netconsole 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
netfs 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
network 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
nfslock 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
nscd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
ntpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
pcscd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
portmap 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
readahead_early 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
readahead_later 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:on 6:off
restorecond 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
rhnsd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
rpcgssd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
rpcidmapd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
sendmail 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
setroubleshoot 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
smartd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
sshd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
syslog 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
sysstat 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
vmware-tools 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
wdaemon 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
xfs 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
xinetd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
yum-updatesd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
Hello,
I would check out the CISecurity (http://cisecurity.org) RHEL5 benchmark for a full list of what can be disabled.
Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast
In my experience with Linux VMs there hasn't been anything we have turned off specifically because the machine is now virtual instead of being a physical. I would think the decision of what services are needed is based on the functional requirements of the server itself. Definitely run the vmware-tools service as that is something just for vmware.
Only one I would drop is bluetooth.
--Matt
VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek
Hello,
I would check out the CISecurity (http://cisecurity.org) RHEL5 benchmark for a full list of what can be disabled.
Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast
smartd, That is because the VMware Virtual HDD won't support it. But if you VM is configured with RDM then i would say leave the smartd on.
-Surya
This is a great resource and very helpful.
I was looking at what I could turn off with respect to the fact that is was now a vm, such things as powermanagement,. hwbrowser stuff, etc.
This gives me a list of things I can turn off with respect to security. If i can turn off alot of this stuff, the other stuff would probably take care of itself.
Here are the ones I've disabled for CentOS 5 because they were unnecessary to a VM:
bluetooth - Bluetooth services (hcid & sdpd)
hidd - Bluetooth HID daemon
pcscd - PC/SC Smart Card Daemon
smartd - SMART Disk Monitoring daemon
ntpd - Network Time daemon (only if you have time sync to host set up)
I'm curious if apmd and acpid are necessary for a VM (it doesn't even seem like apmd runs). The only thing I can think of that acpid may be used for is the "Shutdown Guest" and "Restart Guest" commands.
-Mark
Hello,
Correct, everything that is 'hardware' related that I know about is actually in the 'security list' so disabling everything there will help with quite a few things.
Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast
these are the services I usually disable for Centos 5.6...Later I will be adding for Suse 11 SP1
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-default-services-which-are-enabled-at-boot/
Cool, thanks for posting your list.
Pete
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