Standard packages installed by Ubuntu server 16.04

[Robie Basak]

Hi Leroy,

On Tue, Nov 06, 2018 at 11:28:09PM +0000, Leroy Tennison wrote:
> Is there a list somewhere of the standard services Ubuntu server 16.04
> installs by default and what they do?  I have a need to trim un-needed
> services but don't want to remove anything without knowing what it
> does.

Lists will inevitable fall out of date. The best list is the truth
directly from the source. Why not start a fresh 16.04 instance (a
container would be easiest: "lxc launch ubuntu:16.04") and examine the
running services?

You can run "systemctl status" to see them all, "dpkg -S <path>" to get
the name of the package supplying a particular file, and "dpkg -s
<package>" to see what it does.

The difference between different environments may lead to minor changes
in running services, but that should at least be a start, and you'll be
able to double check on your actual deployment.

FWIW, IMHO "trimming un-needed services" doesn't really bring any
benefit in itself, only future pain when a service you remove turns out
to be needed later and things don't work as expected compared to
everyone else. It is true that we may be shipping something enabled by
default for something that we think users expect to have by default, but
you don't need. Generally we make sure they're harmless if unused
though. For example Ubuntu has a "no open ports by default" policy with
few exceptions.

HTH,

Robie
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