In this article, we will give a brief introduction to the IP networking services, how to configure them, and how to set up a relatively secure Linux workstation. Please note that the examples given here are from the Slackware distribution. The paths of the files might be different on other distributions of Linux. With a network interface card or a modem and PPP, one can connect a machine to a local area network or the Internet and have access to many additional services and network utilities. Linux provides two methods of establishing host-network services.
Servers can either run stand-alone or under the control of a program called inetd .
Heavily used services will usually run stand-alone. This means the service does all the management and listening on a socket or port. The most common stand-alone services are inetd, syslogd, portmapper, named, and routed . These must come first. However, most services run through inetd.