++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ C socket handler versus xinetd
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
| Less than a hour after writing about a C server that handles connections and
| distribute them to another programs, **inetd** came to my mind and I thought:
| "nice! Maybe I can create the Vila without writing this component". So, I went
| after inetd to see what it is capable of.
| 
|
| The truth is: it is not what I was looking for. inetd (or `xinetd`, in my case)
| is kind of a MONSTER. It is intended to listen to all ports and handle lots of
| protocols and perform a lot of other functions instead just listening to ONE
| single port and calling other program to handle the connections.
| And, besides that, I couldn't find a way to run xinetd as an unprivileged user,
| since it insisted in using /etc/services as a parameter for validating my
| custom services (and failing, preventing me to run them).
| 
|
| It's a shame. I would love to use a pre-existing application as the connection
| handler.
| 
|
| 
| I proceeded, then, to write my own server. I managed to make it work reasonably
| well with 64 lines of C code, including passing along all environment variables
| from the server to the forked program.
| 
|
| It works in a very, very simple fashion: bind to an address, accept a
| connection, fork. These last two in an infinite loop. I believe the forking
| process will be fast enough to not block connections.
| Maybe.
| 
|
| My mother called me, today. She is very happy with the newly installed "rural
| phone", that is a regular GSM chip installed on a old-style-like telephone
| device that plugs into an external antenna. It's powerful enough to get signal
| even on reasonably remote places.
| It has an USB cable that you can plug into your computer and use it as an
| external modem. My father tried it and the system didn't detected the phone,
| so he called me to ask for some instructions.
| Sorry: unable to do that thus remotely. At least some log reading is needed.
| And MAYBE I uninstalled `ModemManager` or something like that. I hope it is not
| the case...
| 
|
| 
| I was hoping to record a new video for my channel today, but all this research
| about inetd plus the struggle to make the C server to work properly (I kind of
| lost some of my old C skills and am trying to recover that) rendered it
| impossible.
| Tomorrow, maybe...