Echo and Chargen services

[Monica Goodson]

What is the purpose of echo service (port 7) and chargen (port 19)? I received some guidance from our security department to turn these services off but I can't make an intelligent decision if I don't know what the services are and the purpose they serve.

Thank you,
Monica

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Monica:

The 'echo' service simply echos the character sent to the connection.

The 'chargen" service echos a complete character set back to the initiating connection.

...JRF...

[Tom Danzig]

These services are rarely used any more. For security reasons, I would recommend turning them off. Any service below port 20 can usually be turned off without issue.