Networking Guide
Chapter 1, Networking overview

Network servers and databases

Network servers and databases

In the UNIX system, most server programs are started by a super server, called the ``Internet daemon''. The Internet daemon, /etc/inetd, acts as a master server for programs specified in its configuration file, /etc/inetd.conf. It listens for service requests for these servers, and starts up the appropriate program whenever a request is received. The configuration file includes information about:

Some trivial services are implemented internally in inetd.conf(SFF), and their servers are listed as internal For example, an entry for the ``daytime'' internal service (that displays the current day and time of any machine on the network) would appear as:
   daytime stream  tcp     nowait  root    internal
Consult inetd.conf(SFF) for more details on the format of the configuration file and the operation of the Internet daemon. Several data files are used by the network library routines and server programs. Most of these files are host independent and are updated only rarely. 

Table 1-3 Network database files

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 File               Manual reference   Use
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 /etc/hosts         hosts(SFF)         host names
 /etc/networks      networks(SFF)      network names
 /etc/services      services(SFF)      list of known services
 /etc/protocols     protocols(SFF)     protocol names
 /etc/hosts.equiv   rshd(ADMN)         list of ``trusted'' hosts
 /etc/ftpusers      ftpd(ADMN)         list of ``unwelcome'' ftp users
 /etc/inetd.conf    inetd(ADMN)        list of servers started by inetd
The files distributed are set up for Internet hosts. Local networks and hosts should be added to the databases to describe the local configuration.