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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.bri.connect.com.au!corolla.OntheNet.com.au!not-for-mail From: Tony Griffiths <tonyg@OntheNet.com.au> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: What's the difference between inetd.conf and rc.local? Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 12:47:53 +1000 Organization: On the Net (ISP on the Gold Coast, Australia) Lines: 22 Message-ID: <33A89DD9.1A79@OntheNet.com.au> References: <33a87ec8.2658713@news4.odn.ne.jp> Reply-To: tonyg@OntheNet.com.au NNTP-Posting-Host: swanee.nt.com.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (WinNT; I) To: Michael Law <luoht@usa.net> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:43133 Michael Law wrote: > > Some services ( such as POP3 ) are started by adding a line to the > 'inetd.conf' file. But when I install IRCD, I have to start it within > 'rc.local'. What's the difference between these files? Is there any > other way to start a service when the system boot? Network applications started from inetd have most if not all of the hard work done for them (ie. the listen and accept for incoming connections). It is possible to run an application from inetd that is TOTALLY network unaware if it simply reads and writes to stdin and stdout!!! If you start a daemon from rc.local then _IT_ must listen for incoming connections to a particular IP-addr + port tuple and do the accepting of the connection itself. It it needs to handle multiple connections, then it generally forks itself and lets the child process handle the accepting while the parent daemon goes back to listening. The command 'netstat -n' will show what processes are doing what in terms of TCP and UDP networking. Tony