Chapter 7. Network Services

Fedora, like most Linux and Unix systems, makes no distinction between server and client systems. In fact, many Fedora systems participate in both roles, both serving and consuming information.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Fedora Core ships with a full complement of software for serving everything from web pages and email to files and printer connections. These server packages are based on open standards and interoperate with other platforms, so you can use a Fedora system to serve Windows, Mac, Linux, or Unix clients.

Most Fedora servers are extensively configurable. Configuration information is stored in text files, but the format of the text files varies, and the information in those files goes by different namesdirectives, statements, parameters, or optionsdepending on the program. Red Hat has developed convenient graphical configuration tools for most of the server configuration files.

Services are programs that constantly run in the background. Services can start automatically when the system starts, but not all services are configured this way by default (see Lab 4.6, "Managing and Configuring Services"). It also might be necessary to adjust your firewall or SELinux configuration to use the services discussed in this chapter (see Chapter 8 for more information).