Quote:
Originally Posted by
ross.mather
[...]that you need to disable a large number of ports in the /etc/services file[...]
I'm not sure if you, ross, meant it that way, but i would like to point out the following for clarification: the file /etc/services is just a translation device for port names to port numbers, similar to the /etc/hosts file, which translates host names to IP addresses. Its content is mostly derived from RFC1700.
Removing an entry there will in no way close or disable a certain port, just like removing an entry from /etc/hosts will not prevent communiaction with the mentioned host.
To disable communication via a certain port one will have to resort to some layer-4 filtering, i.e. firewalling: IPSec, iptables or something such.
I hope this helps.
bakunin