SGI IRIX chkconfig
- Controlling Services

Introduction

IRIX has a wonderful tool for activating an ddeactivating daemons and some other features: A little program called chkconfig. Here I want to show you how to use this program, which is fairly easy, and give a short description of most services that may be running in your system

Using chkconfig

Using chkconfig is really fairly easy. If you simply type in chkconfig, you will see a list of all activated daemons and services, like this

Octane# chkconfig Flag State ==== ===== appletalk off array off autoconfig_ipaddress off desktop on esp off fcagent off fontserver off gated off ipaliases on lp off mediad on miser off ...etc... xdm on

You can also find out if a single service is running (this might be useful for scripts) by typing chkconfig [service]. This command will return status 0 or 1 indicating if the specified option is activated or not.

Last but not least you can turn on and off a service or option by typing chkconfig [service] [on/off].

Overview of Services

Option	Details
4DDN	Initialize 4DDN (DECnet connectivity) software.
acct	Start process accounting.
appletalk	Enable aplletalk networking
array	Enable array services daemon
autoconfig_ipaddress, auto_ipaddress	Enable dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) as a client.
automount	Start the NFS automounter daemon.
desktop	If off, fewer of the IRIX Interactive Desktop user interface features are enabled, and typically a different toolchest menu is used. It is identical to creating the file $HOME/.disableDesktop except that it applies to all accounts. The specific effect is that the desktop version of Xsession (/usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession.dt) is not run upon login, and therefore programs started from that file are not run or are run with different options.
esp	Enable Embedded Support Partner. The Embedded Support Partner consists of a set of daemons that perform various monitoring activities. These include an event monitoring and management daemon and database daemon.
fcagent	Enable FibreVault Status/Configuration daemon
fontserver	Start the X11R6 font server daemon.
gated	Start the Cornell routing daemon instead of the BSD routed.
hypernet	Initialize HyperNET controller and routes.
ipaliases
ipfilterd	Enable the Silicon Graphics IP Packet Filtering daemon.
jserver	Start Japanese convert engine if the optional product Japanese Language Module is installed.
lockd	Start the NFS lock and status daemons.
lp	Start/stop printing daemon.
mediad	Start the removable media daemon.
miser	Start the miser daemon. Miser is a deterministic batch scheduling facility that can be used to balance batch and interactive cpu and memory usage.
mrouted	Start the IP multicast routing daemon (useful only on gateways).
named	Start Internet domain name server.
nds	Enable network dual-head software daemon for Octanes in Dual-Head configurations
network	Allow incoming and outgoing network traffic. This flag can be set off if you need to isolate the machine from the network without removing cables.
netwr_client
nfs	Start the NFS daemons nfsd and biod. Mount all NFS filesystems.
noiconlogin	Do not show user icons on the login screen.
nostickytmp	Do not turn the sticky bit on for the directories /tmp and /var/tmp.
ns_admin
nsd	Enable UNS name service daemon
nsr	Start up the IRIS NetWorker daemons.
nss_fasttrack	Start/Stop Netscape FastTrack Server
pcnfsd	Start the PC-NFS server daemon.
pmcd	Start the Performance Metrics Collector Daemon.
pmie	Start the Performance Metrics Inference Engines.
privileges	Enable privileges to be used on the system.
proclaim_relayagent	Enable relaying for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
proclaim_server	Enable server for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
quickpage	Enable SNPP client/server for sending messages to an alpha-numeric pager.
quotacheck	Run quotacheck on the filesystems that have quotas enabled.
quotas	Enable quotas for local configured filesystems.
rarpd	Start the Reverse ARP daemon.
routed	Start the 4.3BSD RIP routing daemon.
rsvpd	Start the Resource ReSerVations Protocol daemon daemon.
rtmond	Start system event monitoring daemon
rwhod	Start the 4.3BSD rwho daemon.
sar	Start the system activity reporter.
savecore	Enable the saving of kernel crash images. Some information is saved in /var/adm/crash even if saving is disabled.
sdpd
sendmail	Start sendmail daemon.
sendmail_cf
sesdaemon	Start Fibre Channel Drive Enclosure Status/Configuration daemon
snetd	Start DLPI network daemon for STREAMS networks.
snmpd	Start the Simple Network Management Protocol daemon.
soundscheme	Start the IRIX Interactive Desktop audio cue daemon.
sysevent	Start System Log Event Capture System Daemon
timed	Start the 4.3BSD time synchronization daemon.
timeslave	Start the Silicon Graphics time synchronization daemon.
ts	Start Tape support Daemon
verbose	Print the names of daemons as they are started.
videod	Enable the video daemon. Used by video devices such as vino.
visuallogin	Enable the visual login screen.
vswap
webface
webface_apache
windowsystem	Start the X window system. If windowsystem is off, it is necessary to modify the inittab file to enable getty on the textport window if you wish to use graphics as a dumb terminal. The recommended means of enabling and disabling the window system are the commands startgfx and stopgfx.
xdm	Start the X display manager.
xinerama	Enable Xinerama extension of the X server.
yp, ypserv, ypmaster	client, slave and master NIS respectively

In order to conserve memory and improve performance, you may want to disable some of the running daemons. But be careful, some of these daemons and options are almost lethal to a fully working system! The following daemons should only be turned off when you really know what you ware doing.

Daemon	Why you want to keep it running
xdm, windowsystem	You need these daemons for the graphical user interface and X11 server.
network	You should keep this running for any networking experience.
desktop, soundscheme	This enables the Indigo Magic Desktop
nsd	The name service daemon is needed for resolving hostnames to IP-addresses
mediad

There are other daemons that might make sense depending on your hardware configuration and networking environment.

Daemon	When should it be started
routed
mrouted
rarpd
gated
autoconfig_ipaddress
nss_fasttrack
videod
ts
sendmail
timed
appletalk
lp

 

• none