Open System Services Management and Operations Guide (G06.27+, H06.04+)

Managing Servers
Open System Services Management and Operations Guide—527191-003
4-5
The Network Services Servers and Tools
The Network Services Servers and Tools
The following subsections briefly discuss:
•
inetd on page 4-5
•
rshd on page 4-5
•
rexecd on page 4-6
•
portmap and RPCINFO on page 4-6
•
BIND 9 Domain Name Server and Tools on page 4-6
All but RPCINFO are usually demon processes or processes started by demon
processes on UNIX systems.
inetd
The inetd process is the UNIX and OSS equivalent of the Guardian LISTNER
process for AF_INET and AF_INET6 OSS sockets applications. In the OSS
environment, inetd is the server process that listens for network activity.
inetd is started from an OSS shell command line or script and listens for connections
on certain Internet ports. When a connection request is received, inetd decides which
service the request corresponds to and invokes a server program to service the
request. After the program completes the request, inetd continues to listen. The
inetd process allows one process to invoke several others, reducing load on the
system.
inetd simplifies the interface of a server program that it starts, because it duplicates
its socket descriptors for an incoming request as file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 before the
server application is processed by an exec function call. This action allows the server
application to use the stdin, stdout, and stderr files in function calls to perform
the requested service.
If the inetd server fails, you can restart it. Server failure can be detected from the
Event Management Service (EMS) messages issued to your system logs, as described
in OSS Subsystem Messages on page A-61.
For more information about the inetd server, see the inetd(8) reference page
either online or in the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual.
rshd
The rshd process is the server process for the rsh utility. It is started by the inetd
process, which must be running when you use the rsh utility.
For information about the behavior of the rshd process, see the rshd(8) reference
page either online or in the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference
Manual.