Software Posted to net.sources

[ry at cadre.UUCP]

>> 	I have posted a program to net.sources call netd.
>> 	........
>
>This is the same thing that Berkeley put in in "4.3BSD" (or whatever it'll
>be called when it comes out), and which UNET also had.  Berkeley called
>it "inetd", and they talk about it in their performance paper that was
>given at Salt Lake City.
>

Not exactly, I have inet on a sun also. (in binary, I assume it is ucb's)
The differences follow: (Correct me somebody if I am wrong)

	Inetd services internet udp/tcp only, netd services
internet udp/tcp/raw and unix domain sockets also. (lpd can be
serviced by netd by not inetd.) I believe the code is generic enough
to permit modification to handle others domains. The source includes
one running example used to talk with perq workstations.
Netd can be used by non-root users to develope services, inetd can not.

	Netd has a much more complicated configuration file than inet.
It includes socket type, logfile, uid, gid, and nice of server
program	and invoking arguments. This is likely overkill, but
nice for debugging. It however lacks the ability to turn on socket
debugging information (someone forgot). Netd also reconfigures upon 
receiving a SIGHUP. Inetd must be killed and restarted. (Not too nice
on a busy system.)

	The passing of parameter to servers is done in environment and
invoking arguments with netd. Inetd passes parameters as invoking arguments. 
Use of file descriptors is different. Netd opens a logfile, inetd assumes
servers process handles any logfile opening.

The two are incompatible currently.
As was pointed out in net.sources <4624 at ucbvax> 
> Uh, I think you guys should realize that we at berkeley have an inet
> daemon as well, quite similar to this stuff, but ours will be distributed
> in the upcoming new 4.2 release.  So, if you intend to upgrade
> to the new BSD, I'd suggest waiting for ours...
>	
It should be easy to recompile internet server programs compatible with netd
to be compatible with inetd since all one must do is alter a few lines of
code in library used to compile server programs, to understand inetd's
method of parameter/descriptor passing and open a logfile.

As for speed, I have not measured, but suspect they are close, but inetd
is faster. Inetd is a smaller program than netd. (At least the binary is.)

	Russ

	ry at cadre.arpa
        decvax!idis!cadre!ry