| INETD(8) | System Manager's Manual | INETD(8) | 
inetd, inetd.conf —
| inetd | [ -d] [-l]
      [configuration file] | 
inetd should be run at boot time by
  /etc/rc (see
  rc(8)). It then opens sockets
  according to its configuration and listens for connections. When a connection
  is found on one of its sockets, it decides what service the socket corresponds
  to, and invokes a program to service the request. After the program is
  finished, it continues to listen on the socket (except in some cases which
  will be described below). Essentially, inetd allows
  running one daemon to invoke several others, reducing load on the system.
The options available for inetd:
Upon execution, inetd reads its
    configuration information from a configuration file which, by default, is
    /etc/inetd.conf. The path given for this
    configuration file must be absolute, unless the -d
    option is also given on the command line. There must be an entry for each
    field of the configuration file, with entries for each field separated by a
    tab or a space. Comments are denoted by a ``#'' at the beginning of a line.
    There must be an entry for each field (except for one special case,
    described below). The fields of the configuration file are as follows:
[listen-addr:]service-spec socket-type[:accept-filter] protocol[,sndbuf=size][,rcvbuf=size] wait/nowait[:max] user[:group] server-program server program arguments
The listen-addr specifies the local address
    inetd should use when listening. The single
    character “*” means INADDR_ANY: all
    local addresses. To avoid the need to repeat listen addresses over and over
    again, listen addresses are inherited from line to line, and the listen
    address can be changed without defining a service by including a line
    containing just a listen-addr followed by a colon. The
    default (compatible with historical configuration files) is *. To return to
    this behavior after configuring some services with specific listen
    addresses, give * explicitly.
Note that restricted listen addresses are meaningless and ignored for UNIX-domain services, and are not supported for Sun-RPC services. All Sun-RPC services always listen on all interfaces.
The form of the service-spec varies with the service type. For Internet services, the service-spec can be either the name of a service from /etc/services or a decimal port number. For “internal” services (discussed below), the service name must be the official name of the service (that is, the first entry in /etc/services) and not an alias for it.
For Sun-RPC based services, the
    service-spec has the form
    service-name/version.
    The service name must be a valid RPC service name from the file
    /etc/rpc. The version on the right
    of the “/” is the RPC version number. This can simply be a
    single numeric argument or a range of versions. A range is bounded by the
    low version to the high version - e.g. “rusers/1-3”.
For UNIX-domain (local) services, the service-spec is the path name to listen on.
The socket-type should be one of “stream”, “dgram”, “raw”, “rdm”, or “seqpacket”, depending on whether the socket is a stream, datagram, raw, reliably delivered message, or sequenced packet socket.
Optionally, for Internet services, an accept filter (see
    accept_filter(9)) can
    be specified by appending a colon to socket-type, followed
    by the name of the desired accept filter. In this case
    inetd will not see new connections for the specified
    service until the accept filter decides they are ready to be handled.
The protocol must be a valid protocol as given in /etc/protocols or (for UNIX-domain services) the string “unix”. The most common are “tcp” and “udp”. For TCP and UDP, the IP version (4 or 6) may be specified explicitly by appending 4 or 6 to the protocol name. Otherwise the default version (IPv4) is used. For Sun-RPC the string “rpc” and a slash should be prepended: “rpc/tcp” or “rpc/udp”. If you would like to enable special support for faithd(8), prepend the string “faith” and a slash: “faith/tcp6”.
In addition to the protocol, the configuration file may specify the send and receive socket buffer sizes for the listening socket. This is especially useful for TCP: the window scale factor, which is based on the receive socket buffer size, is advertised when the connection handshake occurs and thus the socket buffer size must be set on the listen socket. By increasing the socket buffer sizes, better TCP performance may be realized in some situations. The socket buffer sizes are specified by appending their values to the protocol specification as follows:
tcp,rcvbuf=16384 tcp,sndbuf=64k tcp,rcvbuf=64k,sndbuf=1m
A literal value may be specified, or modified using ‘k’ to indicate kilobytes or ‘m’ to indicate megabytes. Socket buffer sizes may be specified for all services and protocols except for tcpmux services.
The wait/nowait entry is used to tell
    inetd if it should wait for the server program to
    return, or continue processing connections on the socket. If a datagram
    server connects to its peer, freeing the socket so
    inetd can receive further messages on the socket, it
    is said to be a “multi-threaded” server, and should use the
    “nowait” entry. For datagram servers which process all
    incoming datagrams on a socket and eventually time out, the server is said
    to be “single-threaded” and should use a “wait”
    entry. comsat(8)
    (biff(1)) and
    ntalkd(8) are both examples of
    the latter type of datagram server.
    tftpd(8) is an exception; it is
    a datagram server that establishes pseudo-connections. It must be listed as
    “wait” in order to avoid a race; the server reads the first
    packet, creates a new socket, and then forks and exits to allow
    inetd to check for new service requests to spawn new
    servers. The optional “max” suffix (separated from
    “wait” or “nowait” by a dot or a colon)
    specifies the maximum number of server instances that may be spawned from
    inetd within an interval of 60 seconds. When
    omitted, “max” defaults to 40. If it reaches this maximum
    spawn rate, inetd will log the problem (via the
    syslogger using the LOG_DAEMON facility and
    LOG_ERR level) and stop handling the specific
    service for ten minutes.
Stream servers are usually marked as “nowait” but if
    a single server process is to handle multiple connections, it may be marked
    as “wait”. The master socket will then be passed as fd 0 to
    the server, which will then need to accept the incoming connection. The
    server should eventually time out and exit when no more connections are
    active. inetd will continue to listen on the master
    socket for connections, so the server should not close it when it exits.
    identd(8) is usually the only
    stream server marked as wait.
The user entry should contain the user name of the user as whom the server should run. This allows for servers to be given less permission than root. Optionally, a group can be specified by appending a colon to the user name, followed by the group name (it is possible to use a dot (``.'') in lieu of a colon, however this feature is provided only for backward compatibility). This allows for servers to run with a different (primary) group id than specified in the password file. If a group is specified and user is not root, the supplementary groups associated with that user will still be set.
The server-program entry should contain the
    pathname of the program which is to be executed by
    inetd when a request is found on its socket. If
    inetd provides this service internally, this entry
    should be “internal”.
The server program arguments should be just as arguments normally are, starting with argv[0], which is the name of the program. If the service is provided internally, the word “internal” should take the place of this entry. It is possible to quote an argument using either single or double quotes. This allows you to have, e.g., spaces in paths and parameters.
inetd provides several “trivial” services
  internally by use of routines within itself. These services are
  “echo”, “discard”, “chargen”
  (character generator), “daytime” (human readable time), and
  “time” (machine readable time, in the form of the number of
  seconds since midnight, January 1, 1900 GMT). For details of these services,
  consult the appropriate RFC.
TCP services without official port numbers can be handled with the RFC1078-based tcpmux internal service. TCPmux listens on port 1 for requests. When a connection is made from a foreign host, the service name requested is passed to TCPmux, which performs a lookup in the service name table provided by /etc/inetd.conf and returns the proper entry for the service. TCPmux returns a negative reply if the service doesn't exist, otherwise the invoked server is expected to return the positive reply if the service type in /etc/inetd.conf file has the prefix “tcpmux/”. If the service type has the prefix “tcpmux/+”, TCPmux will return the positive reply for the process; this is for compatibility with older server code, and also allows you to invoke programs that use stdin/stdout without putting any special server code in them. Services that use TCPmux are “nowait” because they do not have a well-known port number and hence cannot listen for new requests.
inetd rereads its configuration file when
    it receives a hangup signal, SIGHUP. Services may be
    added, deleted or modified when the configuration file is reread.
    inetd creates a file
    /var/run/inetd.pid that contains its process
  identifier.
inetd to
  provide internal tcpd-like access control functionality. An external tcpd
  program is not needed. You do not need to change the
  /etc/inetd.conf server-program entry to enable this
  capability. inetd uses
  /etc/hosts.allow and
  /etc/hosts.deny for access control facility
  configurations, as described in
  hosts_access(5).
Nota Bene: TCP wrappers do not affect/restrict UDP or internal services.
#@”, is used as a policy specifier. The
  content of the above comment line will be treated as a IPsec policy string, as
  described in
  ipsec_set_policy(3).
  Multiple IPsec policy strings may be specified by using a semicolon as a
  separator. If conflicting policy strings are found in a single line, the last
  string will take effect. A #@ line affects all of the
  following lines in /etc/inetd.conf, so you may want to
  reset the IPsec policy by using a comment line containing only
  #@ (with no policy string).
If an invalid IPsec policy string appears in
    /etc/inetd.conf, inetd logs
    an error message using
    syslog(3) and terminates
    itself.
Under various combination of IPv4/v6 daemon settings,
    inetd will behave as follows:
inetd provided
    servicesJ. Postel, Echo Protocol, RFC, 862, May 1983.
J. Postel, Discard Protocol, RFC, 863, May 1983.
J. Postel, Character Generator Protocol, RFC, 864, May 1983.
J. Postel, Daytime Protocol, RFC, 867, May 1983.
J. Postel and K. Harrenstien, Time Protocol, RFC, 868, May 1983.
M. Lottor, TCP port service Multiplexer (TCPMUX), RFC, 1078, November 1988.
inetd command appeared in
  4.3BSD. Support for Sun-RPC based
  services is modeled after that provided by SunOS 4.1. Support for specifying
  the socket buffer sizes was added in NetBSD 1.4. In
  November 1996, libwrap support was added to provide internal tcpd-like access
  control functionality; libwrap is based on Wietse Venema's tcp_wrappers. IPv6
  support and IPsec hack was made by KAME project, in 1999.
“tcpmux” on IPv6 is not tested enough.
| July 19, 2017 | NetBSD 9.4 |