Shell Programming and Scripting

Could I make use of xinetd as madiator server in this context?

xinetd/inetd/u_inetd are more tcp related, for independent services, so 1) you would have to worry about parallel operation and 2) the overhead per message is high unless the protocol maintains the connection for many messages.

The beauty of a UDP socket receiver is that one socket on one server serves all clients, first-come, first-served, without locking, accept, fork or connection setup overheads. If you use a broadcast address, you could have parallel servers on every host with a client making a local message log.

Unfortunately, I have to use rcp, but all R-services are TCP-based :-(

If multiple users sent files at the same time, the server would have to provide one socket for each incoming request, which would cause a lot of server load. Maybe I could use only one socket, but with some kind of semaphore?

Well, scp is free, too, and the rcp family is considered a security problem many places.

rcp sends files, so if they wll when to an incoming directory with names that reflected the sender and forward sequential time, the server can process and remove each in about the order they arrived.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
 
cd input_dir
 
while :
do
 
 f=
 
 ls | while read f
 do
  echo "$f: \c"
  cat $f
  rm -f $f
 done >>msg_file.$(date '%Y-%m-%d')
 
 if [ "$f" = "" ]
 then
  sleep 1
 fi
 
done

Security isn't so important here, because the whole project is only for learning purposes. I am already happy if I can finish it just in time.

The server forwards the incoming messages, which are stored in a fifo queue. Is it better to store them all in one folder or to have one folder for each user? In my opinion one folder would be enough. rcp/scp can't cause problems in regard to parallel processing?

Do not post classroom or homework problems in the main forums. Homework and coursework questions can only be posted in this forum under special homework rules.

Please review the rules, which you agreed to when you registered, if you have not already done so.

More-than-likely, posting homework in the main forums has resulting in a forum infraction. If you did not post homework, please explain the company you work for and the nature of the problem you are working on.

If you did post homework in the main forums, please review the guidelines for posting homework and repost.

Thank You.

The UNIX and Linux Forums.