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Annotation of 43BSDReno/usr.sbin/inetd/inetd.8, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: .\" Copyright (c) 1985 The Regents of the University of California.
        !             2: .\" All rights reserved.
        !             3: .\"
        !             4: .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided
        !             5: .\" that: (1) source distributions retain this entire copyright notice and
        !             6: .\" comment, and (2) distributions including binaries display the following
        !             7: .\" acknowledgement:  ``This product includes software developed by the
        !             8: .\" University of California, Berkeley and its contributors'' in the
        !             9: .\" documentation or other materials provided with the distribution and in
        !            10: .\" all advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software.
        !            11: .\" Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may
        !            12: .\" be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
        !            13: .\" specific prior written permission.
        !            14: .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
        !            15: .\" WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
        !            16: .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
        !            17: .\"
        !            18: .\"    @(#)inetd.8     6.6 (Berkeley) 6/24/90
        !            19: .\"
        !            20: .TH INETD 8 "June 24, 1990"
        !            21: .UC 6
        !            22: .SH NAME
        !            23: inetd \- internet ``super\-server''
        !            24: .SH SYNOPSIS
        !            25: .B inetd
        !            26: [
        !            27: .B \-d
        !            28: ] [ configuration file ]
        !            29: .SH DESCRIPTION
        !            30: .I Inetd
        !            31: should be run at boot time by
        !            32: .IR /etc/rc.local .
        !            33: It then listens for connections on certain
        !            34: internet sockets.  When a connection is found on one
        !            35: of its sockets, it decides what service the socket
        !            36: corresponds to, and invokes a program to service the request.
        !            37: After the program is
        !            38: finished, it continues to listen on the socket (except in some cases which
        !            39: will be described below).  Essentially,
        !            40: .I inetd
        !            41: allows running one daemon to invoke several others,
        !            42: reducing load on the system.
        !            43: .PP
        !            44: Upon execution,
        !            45: .I inetd
        !            46: reads its configuration information from a configuration
        !            47: file which, by default, is
        !            48: .IR /etc/inetd.conf .
        !            49: There must be an entry for each field of the configuration
        !            50: file, with entries for each field separated by a tab or
        !            51: a space.  Comments are denoted by a ``#'' at the beginning
        !            52: of a line.  There must be an entry for each field.  The
        !            53: fields of the configuration file are as follows:
        !            54: .br
        !            55:        service name
        !            56: .br
        !            57:        socket type
        !            58: .br
        !            59:        protocol
        !            60: .br
        !            61:        wait/nowait
        !            62: .br
        !            63:        user
        !            64: .br
        !            65:        server program
        !            66: .br
        !            67:        server program arguments
        !            68: .PP
        !            69: The
        !            70: .I service name
        !            71: entry is the name of a valid service in
        !            72: the file
        !            73: .IR /etc/services/ .
        !            74: For ``internal'' services (discussed below), the service
        !            75: name
        !            76: .I must
        !            77: be the official name of the service (that is, the first entry in
        !            78: .IR /etc/services ).
        !            79: .PP
        !            80: The
        !            81: .I socket type
        !            82: should be one of ``stream'', ``dgram'', ``raw'', ``rdm'', or ``seqpacket'',
        !            83: depending on whether the socket is a stream, datagram, raw,
        !            84: reliably delivered message, or sequenced packet socket.
        !            85: .PP
        !            86: The
        !            87: .I protocol
        !            88: must be a valid protocol as given in
        !            89: .IR /etc/protocols .
        !            90: Examples might be ``tcp'' or ``udp''.
        !            91: .PP
        !            92: The
        !            93: .I wait/nowait
        !            94: entry is applicable to datagram sockets only (other sockets should
        !            95: have a ``nowait'' entry in this space).  If a datagram server connects
        !            96: to its peer, freeing the socket so
        !            97: .I inetd
        !            98: can received further messages on the socket, it is said to be
        !            99: a ``multi-threaded'' server, and should use the ``nowait''
        !           100: entry.  For datagram servers which process all incoming datagrams
        !           101: on a socket and eventually time out, the server is said to be
        !           102: ``single-threaded'' and should use a ``wait'' entry.  ``Comsat'' (``biff'')
        !           103: and ``talk'' are both examples of the latter type of
        !           104: datagram server.
        !           105: .I Tftpd
        !           106: is an exception; it is a datagram server that establishes pseudo-connections.
        !           107: It must be listed as ``wait'' in order to avoid a race;
        !           108: the server reads the first packet, creates a new socket,
        !           109: and then forks and exits to allow
        !           110: .I inetd
        !           111: to check for new service requests to spawn new servers.
        !           112: .PP
        !           113: The
        !           114: .I user
        !           115: entry should contain the user name of the user as whom the server
        !           116: should run.  This allows for servers to be given less permission
        !           117: than root.
        !           118: The
        !           119: .I server program
        !           120: entry should contain the pathname of the program which is to be
        !           121: executed by
        !           122: .I inetd
        !           123: when a request is found on its socket.  If
        !           124: .I inetd
        !           125: provides this service internally, this entry should
        !           126: be ``internal''.
        !           127: .PP
        !           128: The arguments to the server program should be just as they
        !           129: normally are, starting with argv[0], which is the name of
        !           130: the program.  If the service is provided internally, the
        !           131: word ``internal'' should take the place of this entry.
        !           132: .PP
        !           133: .I Inetd
        !           134: provides several ``trivial'' services internally by use of
        !           135: routines within itself.  These services are ``echo'',
        !           136: ``discard'', ``chargen'' (character generator), ``daytime''
        !           137: (human readable time), and ``time'' (machine readable time,
        !           138: in the form of the number of seconds since midnight, January
        !           139: 1, 1900).  All of these services are tcp based.  For
        !           140: details of these services, consult the appropriate RFC
        !           141: from the Network Information Center.
        !           142: .PP
        !           143: .I Inetd
        !           144: rereads its configuration file when it receives a hangup signal, SIGHUP.
        !           145: Services may be added, deleted or modified when the configuration file
        !           146: is reread.
        !           147: .SH "SEE ALSO"
        !           148: comsat(8), fingerd(8), ftpd(8), rexecd(8), rlogind(8), rshd(8),
        !           149: telnetd(8), tftpd(8)

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