How to keep unnecessary processes from starting

[Rashkae]

Derek Broughton wrote:

> 
> As Brian says, one person's wheat is another's chaff, but as near as I can
> tell, since you have pop3-login tasks under dovecot, you _are_ running a
> mail server and so the only unnecessary tasks you have are at least 5 of
> the 6 gettys - those are the consoles waiting for someone to login - and
> possibly proftpd.  Since you're accessing the server from ssh, 1 console is
> probably enough (actually, one console is almost _always_ enough, but they
> take so few resources).  And since you're accessing the server from ssh,
> you should have on-demand sftp, so if it's just you you don't really need
> proftpd, and if it's others you might prefer them to use sftp anyway (more
> secure).


More encrypted does not necessarily mean more secure.  If you are
providing files for download publicly, or even password protected where
data privacy is not really a mandate, then an ftp server might well be
more secure than giving all your leechers system accounts.  AFAIK, sftp
only works if you give them shell access, which then needs to be managed
accordingly.