[ale] Adding service to xinetd

[Dow Hurst]

I think I misunderstood a bit.  You can use chkconfig with any service. 
If you had a xinetd'ed run service such as ftpd, all you'd have to do is
call a script from xinetd instead of the ftpd daemon directly, right? 
That wrapper script would have to hold the info that xinetd passed to it
and would have to check the chkconfig runlevel info on that daemon. 
Under IRIX the chkconfig command just puts a on or off string in a file
under /etc/config/ that is named the name of the service.  This file is
accessed by init scripts in /etc/init.d that check for whether the
service is to be "on" or "off".  Very simple to use.  But, the whole
point of init scripts is for either control of a service while the
machine is running or at boot.  Xinetd and Inetd are for starting a
service intermittently when needed while a machine is running.  So,
xinetd actually removes some realtime control from you over the service
but does make the service only run when a request is made.  It is a
tradeoff of functionality.  I want to run the CUPs server all the time
while someone else might not.  I've noticed over time that the whole
init script process has gotten complicated in some distros.  Under IRIX
I would just modify another script to fit the basic init script form and
then manually add a chkconfig entry.  Now there is in SUSE a insserv
command along with chkconfig.  The LSB requires a more formal process of
how a init script works.  That is okay but there is a learning curve. 
Personally, I like the chkconfig when configuring a server since you can
change lots of daemons quickly.  I like using init scripts since it is
easy to manipulate the daemons on the fly.

I think using xinetd the way you'd like would take some work on a
wrapper that xinetd called.  You couldn't just call smartd unless smartd
could check somewhere itself whether it was supposed to run or not.  If
it can then you'd be okay.  Chkconfig under Linux runs differently than
the IRIX version so you can't use it the same way.  But, you could make
up your own start stop switch if smartd could check it somehow. 
Dow



>>> laytonjb at comcast.net 12/21/03 2:28 PM >>>

Well maybe I'm just lazy. :) I like using the 'chkconfig' feature to
start and stop services or to change run levels for them. Also,
xinetd is much more secure that inetd.

Thanks for the advice!

Jeff

>Since you have it running under init using a init script to start it,
>then you can just add a case in your init script for a stop function. 
>Then you would just call the script with the stop case,
>"/etc/init.d/service stop", to shutdown the daemon.
>Mixing xinetd's control with init's control isn't a great idea.  Don't
>use xinetd since you would have to comment out the service's line in
>xinetd.conf and restart xinetd to stop your service.  Just use init and
>a start and stop case in your startup script.  It is faster for
netbased
>responses and easier for you to control.  Unless there is a reason you
>don't want it running 24/7 and only when a request comes in is it to
>startup and service the request.  I don't know much about xinetd so I
>may not realize there is a way to send it info to stop or start
>servicing requests for a particular service such as ftp or smartd. 
Just
>my thoughts,
>Dow
>
>
>  
>
>>>>laytonjb at comcast.net 12/21/03 12:48 PM >>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>Good afternoon campers!
>
>   I've got a daemon that I'd like to have started (controlled?)
>by xinetd. Currently, I have a script that starts it via the
>init process. However, I'd like to be able to use chkconfig
>to bring the service up and down when I want. Does anyone
>know how to do this? (I've been searching google with not
>much luck).
>
>Thanks!
>
>Jeff
>
>P.S. The service is called smartd - part of smartmontools.
>
>
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