Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up To Date

Overview

This chapter starts with a description of the Extended Internet Services Daemon (xinetd), also known as the "Internet Super Server." It governs a lot of services that do not have their own individual daemons. The techniques required to configure and control xinetd services are subtly different from regular services.

This chapter continues with a discussion of the Secure Shell package, which allows you to connect remotely to the systems you need to administer. While it already encrypts what you type over a network, you can configure it with more levels of security. It's also one way to configure remote connections to GUI applications.

DHCP allows a Linux computer to serve dynamic IP addresses. You can configure a range of IP addresses, reserve a specific IP address for the hardware address associated with a client's network card, and assign more information such as the gateway and DNS IP address to every system that requests an IP address.

Finally, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) can help keep the computers on a network running on the same time. That can be important for logs and for keeping backup servers in sync, which can be especially important for financial transactions.