Catsworth

Hi Guys

I've noticed that when I shut down Ubuntu it lists a whole load of services (and possibly programs?) that it's stopping/closing. Amongst that list are things that look like Bluetooth support (I don't have anything using Bluetooth) and a BitTorrent tracker (I'm not using BitTorrent - yet!).

How do I:

1. Find out exactly what programs/services are running on my Ubuntu install? I've looked at the 'Services' list (System > Administration > Services) but there are only about half a dozen on there and none of the ones that I'm concerned with are running.

2. Shut down/stop (for good) anything that shouldn't be running? Is there a list of the essential services somewhere, or better still a list of things that are normally running that I can shut down without causing any problems?

Thanks.

MikeTbob

Bluetooth is enabled into the kernel itself, as is a lot of other start-up programs and services. If you want to disable bluetooth and other things, you'll need to install the kernel sources and recompile your kernel.

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Catsworth

Ah right, ok - probably won't be fiddling with that for a while then - thanks Mike

I guess that the same will probably prove to be true with some of the other things that Ubuntu reports it is 'stopping' as it shuts down?

MikeTbob

Yeah probably so.
You can go to System > Administration > Services, and use google to decide if you need the services that are listed and shut them down.
I think if you want to remove something like sendmail, un-installing the sendmail program would remove that service from start-up.

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kakubei

Uninstalling the service is quite unnecessary. There are always ways to stop them and keep them from starting up on boot. I admit that in Ubuntu I haven't found an easy way to do this since the Services GUI is quite useless, it will not go into Admin mode (for me). In Fedora, there is chkconfig which is quite easy to use and does not require uninstalling the programs. In truth , uninstalling software manually under linux is not a good idea unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing.

What chkconfig really does is get rid of the script in the corresponding folder (depending on the run level you are at) which is usually /etc/rc5.d. When you shut down, then the scripts in that folder will be shut down. The ones that will startup up begin with a capital S, the ones to shut down with a capital K.

Don't mess too much with this stuff if you don't know what you are doing.

I have to add though, that bluetooth, etc is NOT part of the kernel, they are daemons that you CAN prevent from starting up and indeed you should if you do not need them.

For bluetooth specifically, you can delete this script from /etc/rc5.d:

S25bluez-utils

it is only a softlink to another script in /etc/init.d/bluez-utils. Make sure you do not delete the ones in /etc/init.d, just the links in the /etc/rc5.d. That way you can always get them back by creating another soft link.

Now, I'm new to ubuntu (but I checked all this that I am saying before posting and indeed it is the same as in Fedora) and would like to know if there is a gui or command line tool to manage services. Having to delete the links manually is quite a chore.

Cheers

kakubei

Trolling google, I found this tool for services:

sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf

this is to get the software, then you run it with this: sudo sysv-rc-conf

It looks a lot like chkconfig. Will allow you to start and stop services at boot. You probably want to stay with the number 5 where it says services, this is the run level with a graphical interface, leave the rest as is.

Cheers