CentOS | Manage Auto Start services

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Most server admins want their servers to run as lean and secure as possible. For that reason, we usually try to disable as many services that are unneeded at start-up as possible. Here I will briefly explain how you can manage auto start services on your CentOS box and disable/enable any that you may or may not want starting.

DISCLAIMER:
The usual stuff. Make sure you backup your system and have a complete understanding of what services you disable/enable and any potential impact this may have on your server(s).

SERVICE MANAGEMENT:

Run this command to list the services that are currently run at start-up.

chkconfig --list|grep "3:on"|awk '{print $1}'|sort

I suggest that you output this list to a file to allow you to compare before and after, as well as have the ability to revert any changes in case they cause issues. this can be done as follows:

chkconfig --list|grep "3:on"|awk '{print $1}'|sort > before

Now that you have an idea of what is run at start-up, you can disable things, such as cups (Common Unix Printing Service).

chkconfig cups off

after disabling the services that you do now want to start on boot, you can create a second output file containing the enabled services and compare the 2.

chkconfig --list|grep "3:on"|awk '{print $1}'|sort > after

To compare before and after:

diff before after

 

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