The default PNS installation includes some service components that are typically useful in networking environments. These are BIND for DNS traffic, NTP, and Postfix for SMTP traffic. The use of these services is not mandatory, however, they can help solving three particularly problematic issues of network configuration. Once configured, access to these services (so called local services), as well as remote SSH access to the PNS host must be enabled separately by adding a local service. See Section 9.4, Local services on PNS for details.

For enhanced security, some of these services run in a chrooted environment, otherwise known as a jail. A jail is a special, limited directory structure where the service executables and all the accompanying files, such as configuration files, are installed. The service that is jailed can only access this limited part of the file system hierarchy and is unaware of the rest of the file system. The 'chrooted environment' is a virtual subtree of the full file system, and the top of this subtree is seen by the chrooted (jailed) service as the root '/' directory. From the service's point of view, the jail is a complete file system in the sense that it contains all directories the service needs access to. For example, if the service needs a library from /lib or from /usr/lib, these two directories together with the actual lib files needed are included (copied) in the jail environment. The jail isolates the service from the rest of the system, so even if its security is compromised, it can only destruct the jail and cannot affect the rest of the system.