inetd(8) is referred to as the ``Internet Super-Server'' because it manages connections for several daemons. Programs that provide network service are commonly known as daemons. inetd serves as a managing server for other daemons. When a connection is received by inetd, it determines which daemon the connection is destined for, spawns the particular daemon and delegates the socket to it. Running one instance of inetd reduces the overall system load as compared to running each daemon individually in stand-alone mode.
Primarily, inetd is used to spawn other daemons, but several trivial protocols are handled directly, such as chargen, auth, and daytime.
This section will cover the basics in configuring inetd through its command-line options and its configuration file, /etc/inetd.conf.
inetd is initialized through the /etc/rc.conf system. The inetd_enable option is set to NO by default. Placing:
inetd_enable="YES"or
inetd_enable="NO"into /etc/rc.conf can enable or disable inetd starting at boot time.
Additionally, different command-line options can be passed to inetd via the inetd_flags option.
inetd synopsis:
inetd [-d] [-l] [-w] [-W] [-c maximum] [-C rate] [-a address | hostname]
[-p filename] [-R rate] [configuration file]
Turn on debugging.
Turn on logging of successful connections.
Turn on TCP Wrapping for external services (on by default).
Turn on TCP Wrapping for internal services which are built into inetd (on by default).
Specify the default maximum number of simultaneous
invocations of each service; the default is unlimited.
May be overridden on a per-service basis with the
max-child parameter.
Specify the default maximum number of times a
service can be invoked from a single IP address in one
minute; the default is unlimited. May be overridden on a
per-service basis with the
max-connections-per-ip-per-minute
parameter.
Specify the maximum number of times a service can be invoked in one minute; the default is 256. A rate of 0 allows an unlimited number of invocations.
Specify one specific IP address to bind to. Alternatively, a hostname can be specified, in which case the IPv4 or IPv6 address which corresponds to that hostname is used. Usually a hostname is specified when inetd is run inside a jail(8), in which case the hostname corresponds to the jail(8) environment.
When hostname specification is used and both IPv4 and IPv6 bindings are desired, one entry with the appropriate protocol type for each binding is required for each service in /etc/inetd.conf. For example, a TCP-based service would need two entries, one using tcp4 for the protocol and the other using tcp6.
Specify an alternate file in which to store the process ID.
These options can be passed to inetd using the inetd_flags option in /etc/rc.conf. By default, inetd_flags is set to -wW, which turns on TCP wrapping for inetd's internal and external services. For novice users, these parameters usually do not need to be modified or even entered in /etc/rc.conf.
Note: An external service is a daemon outside of inetd, which is invoked when a connection is received for it. On the other hand, an internal service is one that inetd has the facility of offering within itself.
Configuration of inetd is controlled through the /etc/inetd.conf file.
When a modification is made to /etc/inetd.conf, inetd can be forced to re-read its configuration file by sending a HangUP signal to the inetd process as shown:
Each line of the configuration file specifies an individual daemon. Comments in the file are preceded by a ``#''. The format of /etc/inetd.conf is as follows:
service-name
socket-type
protocol
{wait|nowait}[/max-child[/max-connections-per-ip-per-minute]]
user[:group][/login-class]
server-program
server-program-argumentsAn example entry for the ftpd daemon using IPv4:
ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/libexec/ftpd ftpd -l
This is the service name of the particular daemon. It must correspond to a service listed in /etc/services. This determines which port inetd must listen to. If a new service is being created, it must be placed in /etc/services first.
Either stream, dgram, raw, or seqpacket. stream must be used for connection-based, TCP daemons, while dgram is used for daemons utilizing the UDP transport protocol.
One of the following:
wait|nowait indicates whether the
daemon invoked from inetd is
able to handle its own socket or not.
dgram socket types must use the wait
option, while stream socket daemons, which are usually
multi-threaded, should use nowait.
wait usually hands off multiple sockets
to a single daemon, while nowait spawns a
child daemon for each new socket.
The maximum number of child daemons
inetd may spawn can be set using
the max-child option. If a limit of ten
instances of a particular daemon is needed, a
/10 would be placed after
nowait.
In addition to max-child, another
option limiting the maximum connections from a single
place to a particular daemon can be enabled.
max-connections-per-ip-per-minute does
just this. A value of ten here would limit any particular
IP address connecting to a particular service to ten
attempts per minute. This is useful to prevent
intentional or unintentional resource consumption and
Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to a machine.
In this field, wait or
nowait is mandatory.
max-child and
max-connections-per-ip-per-minute are
optional.
A stream-type multi-threaded daemon without any
max-child or
max-connections-per-ip-per-minute limits
would simply be: nowait.
The same daemon with a maximum limit of ten daemons would read: nowait/10.
Additionally, the same setup with a limit of twenty connections per IP address per minute and a maximum total limit of ten child daemons would read: nowait/10/20.
These options are all utilized by the default settings of the fingerd daemon, as seen here:
finger stream tcp nowait/3/10 nobody /usr/libexec/fingerd fingerd -s
This is the username that the particular daemon should run as. Most commonly, daemons run as the root user. For security purposes, it is common to find some servers running as the daemon user, or the least privileged nobody user.
The full path of the daemon to be executed when a
connection is received. If the daemon is a service
provided by inetd internally,
then internal should be
used.
This works in conjunction with
server-program by specifying the
arguments, starting with argv[0], passed to the daemon on
invocation. If mydaemon -d is
the command line, mydaemon -d would be
the value of server-program-arguments.
Again, if the daemon is an internal service, use
internal here.
Depending on the security profile chosen at install, many of inetd's daemons may be enabled by default. If there is no apparent need for a particular daemon, disable it! Place a ``#'' in front of the daemon in question, and send a hangup signal to inetd. Some daemons, such as fingerd, may not be desired at all because they provide an attacker with too much information.
Some daemons are not security-conscious and have long, or
non-existent timeouts for connection attempts. This allows an
attacker to slowly send connections to a particular daemon, thus
saturating available resources. It may be a good idea to place
max-connections-per-ip-per-minute and max-child
limitations on certain daemons.
By default, TCP wrapping is turned on. Consult the hosts_access(5) manual page for more information on placing TCP restrictions on various inetd invoked daemons.
daytime, time, echo, discard, chargen, and auth are all internally provided services of inetd.
The auth service provides identity (ident, identd) network services, and is configurable to a certain degree.
Consult the inetd(8) manual page for more in-depth information.
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