Enabling bootlogd on Debian Linux servers

Question: I am concerned about some services loaded during my Linux server’s boot up, but it does not seem to keep any log of it. How do I fix this?

Answer: If you are running a Debian-based server, boot-logging is disabled by default. The only way to find out what is happening during a boot, other than being at the console and watching it happen, is to enable bootlogd.

Using a text editor (such as vi or nano), edit the file /etc/default/bootlogd as root.

Find the line that has “BOOTLOGD_ENABLE” and change “no” to “yes”.

BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=yes

Once you have rebooted, you should now have information in /var/log/boot about your system’s booting process.

Disable unused services on your server

Unused services may seem like a non-issue, but they cause your server to take longer at boot, and they eat up RAM that could be used for critical services. This is a cross-platform issue, so Linux, Windows, BSD, and Solaris servers could all potentially have unused services running in the memory.

For example, Linux distributions and Mac OS X often come with CUPS enabled, but if you are using your box as a web server, CUPS, a printing server, is not something you need. Other unused services might include X.org (a graphical window server), bluetooth, hplip (another printing server), nfs (network file system), and many others. Find out what services you are not using and will not need and disable them.

To disable services from starting at boot in Redhat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and Fedora, become root:

su

and type from the command line:

setup

Scroll down to “System Services” and then remove the star from any of the services you do not need. Tab to “OK”, press Enter, and then tab to Quit and press Enter.