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The xinetd service must be disabled if no network services utilizing it are enabled.


Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-38582 RHEL-06-000203 SV-50383r2_rule Medium
Description
The xinetd service provides a dedicated listener service for some programs, which is no longer necessary for commonly-used network services. Disabling it ensures that these uncommon services are not running, and also prevents attacks against xinetd itself.
STIG Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide 2018-11-28

Details

Check Text ( C-46140r2_chk )
If network services are using the xinetd service, this is not applicable.

To check that the "xinetd" service is disabled in system boot configuration, run the following command:

# chkconfig "xinetd" --list

Output should indicate the "xinetd" service has either not been installed, or has been disabled at all runlevels, as shown in the example below:

# chkconfig "xinetd" --list
"xinetd" 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off

Run the following command to verify "xinetd" is disabled through current runtime configuration:

# service xinetd status

If the service is disabled the command will return the following output:

xinetd is stopped


If the service is running, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-43530r2_fix)
The "xinetd" service can be disabled with the following commands:

# chkconfig xinetd off
# service xinetd stop