inetd.conf(5) File Formats Manual inetd.conf(5)Name
inetd.conf - Internet daemon configuration data base
Description
The file contains information regarding the services that will handle by opening sockets and listening for requests. For each service, a
single line should be present with the following information:
Official service name (must be in
Socket type (stream or dgram)
Protocol name (must be in
Delay (wait or nowait)
Program (fully specified server program name)
Arguments (up to five arguments for server program)
Items are separated by any number of blanks or tab characters. A number sign (#) indicates the beginning of a comment. Characters up to
the end of the line are not interpreted by routines that search the file.
Fields may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character.
A server marked as ``wait'' must be able to handle all requests that come to it during its lifetime. The program will not invoke any new
instances of the program until the current one terminates. If a server is marked as ``nowait'', a new invocation of the server will be
started for every incoming request.
FilesSee Alsoprotocols(5), services(5), inetd(8c)inetd.conf(5)
Check Out this Related Man Page
inetd.conf(4) File Formats inetd.conf(4)NAME
inetd.conf - Internet servers database
SYNOPSIS
/etc/inet/inetd.conf
/etc/inetd.conf
DESCRIPTION
In the current release of the Solaris operating system, the inetd.conf file is no longer directly used to configure inetd. The Solaris ser-
vices which were formerly configured using this file are now configured in the Service Management Facility (see smf(5)) using inetadm(1M).
Any records remaining in this file after installation or upgrade, or later created by installing additional software, must be converted to
smf(5) services and imported into the SMF repository using inetconv(1M), otherwise the service will not be available.
For Solaris operating system releases prior to the current release (such as Solaris 9), the inetd.conf file contains the list of servers
that inetd(1M) invokes when it receives an Internet request over a socket. Each server entry is composed of a single line of the form:
service-name endpoint-type protocol wait-status uid server-program
server-arguments
Fields are separated by either <SPACE> or <TAB> characters. A `#' (number sign) indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the
end of the line are not interpreted by routines that search this file.
service-name The name of a valid service listed in the services file. For RPC services, the value of the service-name field con-
sists of the RPC service name or program number, followed by a '/' (slash) and either a version number or a range
of version numbers, for example, rstatd/2-4.
endpoint-type Can be one of:
stream for a stream socket
dgram for a datagram socket
raw for a raw socket
seqpacket for a sequenced packet socket
tli for all TLI endpoints
protocol A recognized protocol listed in the file /etc/inet/protocols. For servers capable of supporting TCP and UDP over
IPv6, the following protocol types are also recognized:
tcp6
udp6
tcp6 and udp6 are not official protocols; accordingly, they are not listed in the /etc/inet/protocols file.
Here the inetd program uses an AF_INET6 type socket endpoint. These servers can also handle incoming IPv4 client
requests in addition to IPv6 client requests.
For RPC services, the field consists of the string rpc followed by a '/' (slash) and either a '*' (asterisk), one
or more nettypes, one or more netids, or a combination of nettypes and netids. Whatever the value, it is first
treated as a nettype. If it is not a valid nettype, then it is treated as a netid. For example, rpc/* for an RPC
service using all the transports supported by the system (the list can be found in the /etc/netconfig file), equiv-
alent to saying rpc/visible rpc/ticots for an RPC service using the Connection-Oriented Transport Service.
wait-status This field has values wait or nowait. This entry specifies whether the server that is invoked by inetd will take
over the listening socket associated with the service, and whether once launched, inetd will wait for that server
to exit, if ever, before it resumes listening for new service requests. The wait-status for datagram servers must
be set to wait, as they are always invoked with the orginal datagram socket that will participate in delivering the
service bound to the specified service. They do not have separate "listening" and "accepting" sockets. Accordingly,
do not configure UDP services as nowait. This causes a race condition by which the inetd program selects on the
socket and the server program reads from the socket. Many server programs will be forked, and performance will be
severely compromised. Connection-oriented services such as TCP stream services can be designed to be either wait or
nowait status.
uid The user ID under which the server should run. This allows servers to run with access privileges other than those
for root.
server-program Either the pathname of a server program to be invoked by inetd to perform the requested service, or the value
internal if inetd itself provides the service.
server-arguments If a server must be invoked with command line arguments, the entire command line (including argument 0) must appear
in this field (which consists of all remaining words in the entry). If the server expects inetd to pass it the
address of its peer, for compatibility with 4.2BSD executable daemons, then the first argument to the command
should be specified as %A. No more than 20 arguments are allowed in this field. The %A argument is implemented only
for services whose wait-status value is nowait.
FILES
/etc/netconfig network configuration file
/etc/inet/protocols Internet protocols
/etc/inet/services Internet network services
SEE ALSO rlogin(1), rsh(1), in.tftpd(1M), inetadm(1M), inetconv(1M), inetd(1M), services(4), smf(5)NOTES
/etc/inet/inetd.conf is the official SVR4 name of the inetd.conf file. The symbolic link /etc/inetd.conf exists for BSD compatibility.
This man page describes inetd.conf as it was supported in Solaris operating system releases prior to the current release. The services that
were configured by means of inetd.conf are now configured in the Service Management Facility (see smf(5)) using inetadm(1M).
SunOS 5.10 17 Dec 2004 inetd.conf(4)