Open System Services Management and Operations Guide (G06.30+, H06.08+, J06.03+)

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.
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.
Beginning with the J06.16 and H06.27 RVUs, the OSS Core Utilities product (T1202) provides
the extended Internet daemon, xinetd. This Open Source super-server daemon manages
Internet-based connectivity and offers a more secure extension to inetd. For more details, see
“OSS Core Utilities User Commands” (page 243).
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.
rexecd
The OSS remote execution server, rexecd, is used for remote NonStop SQL/MX compiler (mxcmp)
invocation from the native C/C++ and NMCOBOL cross-compilers, running by themselves, or
under the Enterprise Toolkit—NonStop Edition. rexecd is started by the inetd process, which
must be running for remote SQL/MX compilations.
For information about the behavior of the rexecd process, see the rexecd(8) reference page
either online or in the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual.
portmap and RPCINFO
The portmap process is a Guardian server process or process pair that converts host port numbers
to Remote Procedure Call (RPC) program numbers. portmap is started from a TACL prompt, runs
as a process named $ZPMn, and is required by products such as the OSS Network File System
(NFS) that use the RPC interface.
The Guardian portmap process corresponds to /etc/portmap or /sbin/portmap on UNIX
systems. For more information about the portmap process, see the portmap(8) reference page
either online or in the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual.
The RPCINFO process is started from a TACL prompt and reports the status of certain servers,
including portmap. RPCINFO is a Guardian process that reports RPC program numbers and can
be used to modify the status of RPC servers available from your node. RPCINFO provides a means
to monitor and change portmap behavior; RPCINFO is required by the same products that require
portmap.
For more information about the RPCINFO process, see the rpcinfo(8) reference page either
online or in the Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual.
BIND 9 Domain Name Server and Tools
The Internet domain name server (DNS) runs in the OSS environment as the named process. It is
started from an OSS shell.
Introducing the OSS Servers 99