Scribd
Upload
20 views

Super Server cn2 Chap1

Super servers like inetd monitor network ports and start the appropriate server process to handle incoming connection requests. This reduces the number of server processes running idle and saves system resources compared to each server running independently. Inetd is a common super server that listens for requests on behalf of multiple services defined in /etc/inetd.conf, starting the associated server program in a child process when needed.

Uploaded by

l
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
20 views

Super Server cn2 Chap1

Super servers like inetd monitor network ports and start the appropriate server process to handle incoming connection requests. This reduces the number of server processes running idle and saves system resources compared to each server running independently. Inetd is a common super server that listens for requests on behalf of multiple services defined in /etc/inetd.conf, starting the associated server program in a child process when needed.

Uploaded by

l
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Super Server

 Super server is a server process, it monitors the arrival of a client request and
starts the appropriate server service.
 Inetd, a super server daemon is a prominent example of a super server for Unix
systems. The assignment of network services is subject to the port numbers in the
file / etc / services.
 In the classical approach the server monitors a process to a port. If there are many
ports, many processes will be in the waiting list and thereby will consume system
resources, especially the memory.
 In super server approach, only the relatively small servers will be maintained,
which requires less memory when idle server services.

Advantages of Super Server

1. Requests from certain addresses are processed


2. Services can be started to certain users in case of super server
3. Thresholds can be set for processes started in absolute terms and per unit time
4. In addition, super server allows a simplified programming of server services, as it starts
each incoming connection request is a separate process.

Disadvantages of Super Server

1. Start of the super server is time consuming, which increases the reaction time according to the
availability of network service.

2.Processes of Super Server

3. In case of a super server, a single process is responsible for all the connections, cache is
shared. It is efficient in terms of resource consumption, if the number of simultaneous
connections grows to a huge.

The inetd Super-Server

 Frequently, services are performed by so-called daemons.


 A daemon is a program that opens a certain port, and waits for incoming
connections.
 If one occurs, it creates a child process which accepts the connection, while the
parent continues to listen for further requests.
 This concept has the drawback that for every service offered, a daemon has to run
that listens on the port for a connection to occur, which generally means a waste
of system resources like swap space.
 Thus, almost all installations run a ``super-server'' that creates sockets for a
number of services, and listens on all of them simultaneously using the select(2)
system call.
 When a remote host requests one of the services, the super-server notices this and
spawns the server specified for this port.
 The super-server commonly used is inetd, the Internet Daemon.
 It is started at system boot time, and takes the list of services it is to manage from
a startup file named /etc/inetd.conf.
 In addition to those servers invoked, there are a number of trivial services which
are performed by inetd itself called internal services.
 They include chargen which simply generates a string of characters, and daytime
which returns the system's idea of the time of day.

An entry in this file consists of a single line made up of the following fields:

service type protocol wait user server cmdline

The meaning of each field is as follows:

service

gives the service name. The service name has to be translated to a port number by
looking it up in the /etc/services file. This file will be described in section 10.3 below.

type

specifies a socket type, either stream (for connection- oriented protocols) or dgram (for
datagram protocols). TCP- based services should therefore always use stream, while UDP- based
services should always use dgram.

protocol

names the transport protocol used by the service. This must be a valid protocol name
found in the protocols file, also explained below.

wait

This option applies only to dgram sockets. It may be either wait or nowait. If wait is
specified, inetd will only execute one server for the specified port at any time.

user

This is the login id of the user the process is executed under. This will frequently be the
root user, but some ser- vices may use different accounts.
server

gives the full path name of the server program to be executed. Internal services are
marked by the keyword internal.

cmdline

This is the command line to be passed to the server. This includes argument 0, that is the
command name. Usually, this will be the program name of the server, unless the program
behaves differently when invoked by a different name. This field is empty for internal services.

Figure: A sample /etc/inetd.conf file

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy