Pros and Cons of running under inetd....

[Derek Ragona]

inetd running is discouraged.  Instead run the daemons on boot using rc 
scripts.  If you look back in the history, inetd running is a security 
risk, and was discouraged in the 5.X releases.

         -Derek

At 01:07 PM 5/12/2006, Eric Schuele wrote:
>Daniel Bye wrote:
>>On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 11:35:41AM -0500, Eric Schuele wrote:
>>>Hello,
>>>
>>>I run sshd and ftpd on my laptop.  I generally start them via:
>>>   sshd_enable="YES"
>>>   ftpd_enable="YES"
>>>in my rc.conf.
>>>
>>>What are the pros/cons of running them via inetd?
>>>
>>>This is in no way a high load or production machine.  Just my laptop
>>>that I need access to from time to time.
>>>
>>>The one pro I have noticed (which is rather important to me) is that
>>>ftpd does not heed hosts.allow directives when NOT run via inetd.  Am I
>>>correct in this?  I prefer to use tcpwrappers to further protect my sshd 
>>>and ftpd.  I generally keep ftpd firewalled off from the world and when 
>>>someone needs to (anonymous) ftp something to me I open the firewall. 
>>>But it would be nice to allow only their IP using hosts.allow (as I just 
>>>enable/disable a generic ruleset in ipfw).  So should I forget to 
>>>disable the ruleset in ipfw then I am not open all day till I reboot.
>
>Thanks for the response.
>
>>When sshd starts, it needs to generate keys and set up its cryptographic
>>environment, so you will notice a bit of lag before getting a login
>>prompt.  This may or may not mean anything to you, depending on how
>>beefy your laptop is.
>>Check man sshd for the -i option.
>>sshd should, by default, be compiled with tcpwrappers support anyway.
>>You can test whether this is the case by putting something like this at
>>the top of your hosts.allow:
>>sshd : 127.0.0.1 : deny
>>and then try connecting on the loopback interface.  If you see `refused
>>connect from localhost' in your /var/log/auth.log, then your sshd uses
>>hosts.allow and running it from inetd won't give you any benefit.
>
>Actually I have sshd under control.  It works fine, and yes uses 
>tcpwrappers by default.
>
>>I don't know about ftpd, as I don't use it.
>
>ftpd however does not seem to use them.
>
>>Dan
>
>Although I am curious about ftpd and tcpwrappers.... I am also interested 
>in whether or not running these daemons under inetd is preferred or 
>not.  If so why?  If not, why?
>
>--
>Regards,
>Eric
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