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	2015-05-26

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