LINUXX DAEMONS

1. DAEMONS
Disk And Execution MONitor

2. • In multitasking computer operating systems,
a daemon is a computer program that runs as
a background process, rather than being
under the direct control of an interactive user.
• Traditionally daemon names end with the
letter d: for example, syslogd is the daemon
that implements the system logging facility
and sshd is a daemon that services
incoming SSH connections.
• In Windows, daemons are called services.

3. • Systems often start daemons at boot time and
serve the function of responding to network
requests, hardware activity, or other programs by
performing some task. Daemons can also
configure hardware , run scheduled tasks and
perform a variety of other tasks.
• A daemon in the Linux environment is any
process that typically runs for a long time, and in
the background. This means that a daemon can
often run from the time a computer is booted, till
it is switched off, and that it will often have no
controlling terminal during its lifetime.

4. Different Daemons used in Linux OS are
Init
Cron
Crontab
Xinetd
Inetd
Sshd
Httpd
Atd
Services file.named

5. init
• init (short for initialization) is the first process started
during booting of the computer system.
• Init is a daemon process that continues running until the
system is shut down.
• It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all other processes
and automatically adopts all orphaned processes.
• Init is started by the kernel using a hard-coded filename,
and if the kernel is unable to start it, a kernel panic will
result. A kernel panic is an action taken by an operating
system upon detecting an internal fatal error from which it
cannot safely recover
• Init is typically assigned process identifier 1.
• The /etc/inittab configuration tells init what to do

6. • Upstart is an event-based replacement for
the /sbin/init daemon which handles starting
of tasks and services during boot, stopping
them during shutdown and supervising them
while the system is running.
• It was originally developed for
the Ubuntu distribution, but is intended to be
suitable for deployment in all Linux
distributions

7. Feature Highlights
• Tasks and Services are started and stopped by
events
• Events are generated as tasks and services are
started and stopped
• Events may be received from any other process
on the system
• Services may be respawned if they die
unexpectedly
• Supervision and respawning of daemons which
separate from their parent process
• User services, which users can start and stop
themselves

8. Enabling daemons
– To (re)enable a daemon (using the default settings)
run the following command,
where <daemon> corresponds to the name of the init
script as listed in /etc/init.d/:
– # insserv <daemon>
Disabling daemons
– To disable a daemon at its default runlevels.(A run
level is a software configuration of the system which
allows only a selected group of processes to exist),
execute the following command,
where <daemon> corresponds to the name of the init
script as listed in /etc/init.d/:
– # insserv -r <daemon>

9. cron
• The software utility cron is a time-based job
scheduler in Unix-like computer operating
systems. People who set up and maintain
software environments use cron to schedule jobs
(commands or shell scripts) to run periodically at
fixed times, dates, or intervals.
• It is used to execute command in present time.
• Cron is driven by a crontab (cron table) file, a
configuration file that specifies shell commands
to run periodically on a given schedule.
• The crontab files are stored where the lists of jobs
and other instructions to the cron daemon are
kept.

10. • Users can have their own individual crontab
files and often there is a system wide crontab
file (usually in /etc or a subdirectory of /etc)
that only system administrators can edit.
• The crontab utility instructs cron to execute
the commands on a specific date and at a
specific time.
• It supplies the Crontab file to the cron
daemon

11. • Crontab syntax
– crontab [-u user ] file
example
– crontab cronfile
• This command invoke the crontab utility with cronfile
as parameter and send the cronfile to cron daemon
• Replicate the same to /var/spool/cron

12. Crontab file
• Crontab file has one line for each task that you
want to automate.
• You can assign any name to crontabfile.
• Format
minute hour day-of-month month-of-year
day-of-week command
Six columns in each line .

13. column Meaning Valid value
1 Minute of the hour 0-59
2 Hour of the day 0-24
3 Day of the month 1-31
4 Month of the year 1-12
5 Day of the week Sunday=0,Monday=1..Satu
rday=6
6 Command/shell script name Any utility to execute at
that time

14. • * * * * * echo “This is an example”
• 0 18 * * * bash /home/user1/take_backup
• 10,30,50 9-18 * * 1-6 cp/home/user1/*
/home/user1/backup
• The –e option with crontab allows you to directly modify
the file that resides with the cron daemon.
• The –r option will delete the scheduled task.
• The system administrator can deny or grant access to
certain users. This can be done by specifying names in
the /etc/cron. allow and /etc/cron. deny file.
• Both files contain the login name of the user to whom
the access is denied or granted.

15. • at Utility
– used to execute the task at one time
– After a job is scheduled with the file system
shutting down and restarting the system will not
affect the scheduled task
– Syntax
• At <options> [time]
at.allow
at.deny
at – Accepts command/shell script to be executed by
using Bash
atq – displays the list of pending jobs
atrm – Removes a job from list of pending jobs

16. -options
• V Prints the version number on the monitor
• q queue Specifies a single letter queue
designation
• m mail message to the user when the job is
completed
• -f file specifies the file name to be executed
at the scheduled time
• -l list of jobs pending for current user
• -v displays the time when the job will be
executed

17. Atd
• Runs jobs queued for later execution.
Syntax
• A
• Atd [-l load_avg] [-b batch_interval] [-d] [-s]
• -l for limiting load factor
• -b Specify the minimum interval in seconds b/w
the start of two batch process
• -d debug :print error message to standard error
• -s for compatibility with old versions of at
command

18. inetd
• Provides Internet service management for a
network.
• inetd listens on designated ports used by Internet
services
• When a TCP packet or UDP packet arrives with a
particular destination port number, inetd
launches the appropriate server program to
handle the connection
• Running inetd for servers that are not heavily
used can reduce the overall system load, when
compared to running each daemon individually in
stand-alone mode.

19. • inetd [-d] [-R rate] [configuration_file]
• -d Turns on debugging.
• -R rate Specify the maximum number of times
a service can be invoked in one minute; the
default is 256.
• inetd reads its configuration information from
a configuration file /etc/inetd.conf

20. • ubservers of the inetd Daemon
• The inetd daemon (a subsystem) controls the following
daemons (subservers):
• comsat daemon
• Ftpd daemon
• Fingerd daemon
• rlogind daemon
• rexecd daemon
• rshd daemon
• talkd daemon
• telnetd daemon
• tftpd daemon
• uucpd daemon.

21. xinetd
• xinetd, the eXtended InterNET Daemon, is an open-source
daemon which runs on many Linux and Unix systems and
manages Internet-based connectivity.
• It offers a more secure extension to or version of inetd, the
Internet daemon.
• xinetd performs the same function as inetd: it starts
programs that provide Internet services.
• Instead of having such servers started at system
initialization time, and be dormant until a connection
request arrives, xinetd is the only daemon process started
and it listens on all service ports for the services listed in its
configuration file.
• When a request comes in, xinetd starts the appropriate
server. Because of the way it operates, xinetd (as well as
inetd) is also referred to as a super-server.

22. • Following are important configuration files for
xinetd:
• /etc/xinetd.conf - The global xinetd
configuration file.
• /etc/xinetd.d/ directory - The directory
containing all service-specific files such as ftp
Syntax
• xinetd [options]

23. • -d Enables debug mode. This produces a lot of debugging
output, and it makes it possible to use a debugger on
xinetd.
• -syslog syslog_facility This option enables syslog
logging of xinetd-produced messages using the specified
syslog facility.
• -filelog logfile xinetd-produced messages will be
placed in the specified file. Messages are always appended
to the file. If the file does not exist, it will be created.
• -f config_file Determines the file that xinetd uses for
configuration. The default is /etc/xinetd.conf.
• -pidfile pid_file The process ID is written to the file.
• -dontfork Tells xinetd to stay in the foreground
• -stayalive Tells xinetd to stay running even if no services
are specified.
• -version This option causes xinetd to print out its
version information.

24. sshd
• shd (OpenSSH Daemon) is the daemon program
for ssh. Together these programs replace rlogin
and rsh, and provide secure encrypted
communications between two untrusted hosts over an
insecure network.
• sshd listens for connections from clients. It is normally
started at boot from /etc/rc.
• It forks a new daemon for each incoming connection.
The forked daemons handle key exchange, encryption,
authentication, command execution, and data
exchange.
• sshd can be configured using command-line options or
a configuration file (by defaultsshd_config); command-
line options override values specified in the
configuration file

25. • sshd [-46Ddeiqt] [-b bits] [-f config_file] [-g
login_grace_time] [-h host_key_file] [-k
key_gen_time] [-o option] [-p port] [-u len]
• -4' Forces sshd to use IPv4 addresses only.
• -6' Forces sshd to use IPv6 addresses only.
• -b bits Specifies the number of bits
• -D' When this option is specified, sshd will not
detach and does not become a daemon. This
allows easy monitoring of sshd.

26. • -e' When this option is specified, sshd will send the
output to the standard error instead of the system log.
• -f config_file Specifies the name of the configuration
file. The default is /etc/ssh/sshd_config. sshd refuses to
start if there is no configuration file.
• -k key_gen_time
Specifies how often the ephemeral protocol version 1
server key is regenerated (default 3600 seconds, or one
hour). The motivation for regenerating the key fairly
often is that the key is not stored anywhere, and after
about an hour it becomes impossible to recover the
key for decrypting intercepted communications even if
the machine is cracked into or physically seized. A value
of zero indicates that the key will never be
regenerated.

27. • -g login_grace_time
Gives the grace time for clients to
authenticate themselves (default 120
seconds). If the client fails to authenticate the
user within this many seconds, the server
disconnects and exits. A value of zero
indicates no limit.
• -h host_key_file
Specifies a file from which a host key is read.
This option must be given if sshd is not run as
root (as the normal host key files are normally
not readable by anyone but root).

28. • -p port
Specifies the port on which the server listens
for connections (default 22). Multiple port
options are permitted.