inetd(8c)
NAME
inetd − Internet service daemon
SYNTAX
/etc/inetd [ −d ] [ conffile ]
DESCRIPTION
The inetd command is the listener daemon for most of the internet service functions. When inetd is started up, it reads its configuration file and opens a socket for each specified service. If a configuration file is not specified, then inetd will open the default file, /etc/inetd.conf. The format of this file is described in inetd.conf(5). The configuration file will be reread whenever inetd receives a hangup signal.
If −d is specified, all sockets will be opened with debug option.
When inetd receives a connection on a stream socket or a packet on a datagram socket, then the server specified in the configuration file is invoked to handle the actual servicing of the request. The server is given the socket that the service is requested on as file descriptor 0.
RESTRICTIONS
Can only handle a limited number of services at any one time. This number is related to the maximum number of file descriptors that a process can have. If large numbers of services are desired, it will be necessary to run multiple copies of inetd with individual configuration files.
FILES
/etc/inetd.conf