Insider Tips: Server Management with inetd and xinetd

HERDING DAEMONS

Article from Issue 52/2005

Author(s): MARC ANDRÉ SELIG

If you have many daemons running on your server, it can be quite difficult to keep track of them all. inetd and xinetd manage these services centrally and also take care of exchanges with your clients, allowing programs without network code to operate as Internet servers.

Typical server applications handle network communication autonomously. They open a socket and listen at a TCP port, using the port to send and receive data. Interaction with a socket is not exactly rocket science, but coding a program for socket interaction can be troublesome and prone to error. It can also be quite difficult to keep track of the various configurations. Central security settings involve a lot of effort if each server has its own set of configuration files. And what’s more, it doesn’t always make sense to re-invent the wheel by coding each program separately for network access.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF

Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Print Subs

Digisubs

TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS

US / Canada

UK / Australia

Related content

Admin Workshop Identd

In last month’s issue of Admin Workshop, we introduced tools that help admins get services up and running. This month, we will show how you can use the Ident protocol to associate a user name with a TCP connection.

more »
Charly's Column

Leafnode is a Usenet server for small sites where just a few users need access to a large number of groups. The Leafnode server is designed to recover from errors autonomously and needs very little attention.

more »
Command Line: Processes

Innumerable processes may be running on your Linux system. We’ll show you how to halt, continue, or kill tasks, and we’ll examine how to send the remnants of crashed programs to the happy hunting grounds.

more »
Security Lessons: Cloud Security

Tools like OpenSCAP and Aqueduct can make life much easier when implementing cloud security standards.

more »
Nagios Workshop

Nagios monitors your network and provides early warning for problems with hosts and services.

more »

comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

Admin_Workshop_inetd_xinetd.pdf (270.99 kB)

News

Trojan Turns Raspberry Pi into a Cryptocurrency Mining Device

Two trojans in the wild are targeting Linux machines.
Fedora 26 Beta Comes with New Features

The workstation comes with the latest Gnome desktop environment and support for many application build systems.
Raspberry Pi Foundation Merges with CoderDojo Foundation

The two foundations join forces to expand their efforts to reach young people.
Samba Security Hole Patched but Risk is Bigger

Millions of devices that use Samba Server are vulnerable to attacks.
Red Hat Announces OpenShift.io

Red Hat takes its IDE online.
Microsoft Bakes Linux into Windows Server

Microsoft is slowly becoming a Linux vendor.
Fearless Coyote, Linux Kernel 4.11 is Out

The new kernel makes swap implementation more scalable, which will help cloud providers.
Docker Appoints Steve Singh CEO

The new CEO comes from a very strong SaaS background.
Docker Announces Linux Kit and Moby Project

Both projects help organizations build their own containerized systems.
Ubuntu Returns to Gnome as Its Mobile Plans Shatter

Mark Shuttleworth has resumed the position of CEO of Canonical.