xinetd like inetd, is a super-server. Here's what the man page says:
So far, the only reason for the existence of a super-
server was to conserve system resources by avoiding to
fork a lot of processes which might be dormant for most of
their lifetime. While fulfilling this function, xinetd
takes advantage of the idea of a super-server to provide
features such as access control and logging. Furthermore,
xinetd is not limited to services listed in /etc/services.
Therefore, anybody can use xinetd to start special-purpose
servers.
Mark
On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Jim B wrote:
> Hi all, I'm a newbie on this list... I just installed Linux for my first
> time last week. I've been learning tons of stuff too. FYI I'm running the
> Debian 2.1 release on an iP133 with 48MB RAM.
>
> Anyway, when I installed it I didn't know exactly what some of the questions
> meant so I followed most of the defaults. Don't worry, now I mostly know
> what I'm doing ;-) but I still can't seem to figure out what is the
> difference between xinetd and inetd. Looks to me like they both do the same
> thing. Can anybody tell me the purpose of xinetd?
>
> BTW I'm using the Linux box over a dial-up PPP connection and using IP
> masquerading to firewall/hook up my Win98 box as well.
>
> Thanks!
>
