tcpserver has its advantages, but it's also old, practically unmaintainedCareful on the editorializing here Andy: I believe that xinetd predates tcpserver and it has had security vulnerabilities (http://lists.progeny.com/archive/progeny-security-announce/2001/msg00023.html) and memory leaks (http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/319088). xinetd has had ten releases since May of 2000.
(which is, arguably, a good thing as it has no known bugs) and lacks
several features that are important today, but weren't important when it
was originally written. The last update to the ucspi-tcp package was March
18th 2000.
It's a real problem with all of DjB's software. It is absolutely reliable,I hope that bincimap has the same "real problem": absolutely reliable, cross-platform, standards compliant and all:-)
cross-platform, standards compliant and all, but "when is qmail II
coming?" ;-)
I prefer the DJB style of very simply configuration files such as the use of envdir over the single-point-of-configuration, mostly because of the extreme reduction in syntax errors and the ease of machine-dependant customization (just overwrite the necessary files) when supporting a large number of machines. In fact, I would like to see bincimap move to the envdir configuration format.xinetd has rate control, IPv6 support, DoS protection, support for UDP, single-point-of-configuration and more, but has the disadvantage that if it crashes, it pulls down all the services attached to it. It also has to run as root, so an exploit could pull down your system. tcpserver can run unprivileged.
My opinion is that these are all tools with pros and cons, and it's noMore importantly, one should choose the tools that best suit the system and environmental requirements. If you need IPv6 then tcpserver is not going meet your requirements. If you need a application where services are highy insulated from each other (or that has a blemish-free security record), then xinetd is not going to meet your requirements.
good to blindly throw away any of these because they "suck" or "there's no
reason to use it". :-)
Henry:-)
Andy :-)
-- Andreas Aardal Hanssen | http://www.andreas.hanssen.name/gpg Author of Binc IMAP | "It is better not to do something http://www.bincimap.org/ | than to do it poorly."
-- Henry Baragar Principal, Technical Architecture 416-453-5626 Instantiated Software Inc. http://www.instantiated.ca
