systat in /etc/services

[Victor_5]

in /etc/services
there is one line:
systat 11/tcp users #Active Users

What is systat for, any security potential issue if I use this service?

[S.K. Chan · Accepted solution]

A good article about "securing inetd", it talks about each and every "typical" services in /etc/services file, what they are for and how to make 'em more secure. For what I gathered the "systat" uses the "ps" command and that usually is left "as-it-is". However it does suggest that using a TCP wrapper would be ideal if you want to secure it.

http://rr.sans.org/unix/inetd.php

[Helen French]

Hi Victor:

As far as I know, this is an informational service like finger, netstat etc, used by TCP and runs on port 11. I think there are some security issues using this service, as I 've read all Security documents referring to comment (#) this field if used by the inetd daemon in the /etc/inetd.conf file.

HTH,
Shiju

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

As you have already noted, 'systat' collects information (on port-11) about active users. This is one of the "common" ports. As long as there is no corresponding entry in /etc/inetd.conf the service cannot run.

Regards!

...JRF...