Re: inetd(8): continue or exit on error?

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost writes:

>It seems to me, since these are services, that the failure to load a
>config is critical enough (since the server may be then servicing what
>was not intended to be serviced; the reverse is less problematic)
>to exit at least on this error.

inetd will service what is configured. Skipping an unparsable directive
may have unwanted side effects, but so will a syntactically correct but
otherwise wrong directive.

The impact of not providing some services in case of a syntax error
can easily be as problematic or dangerous as a wrongly configured service
that the parser is unable to detect.

If you want to protect against bad configurations, you could separate
each service, e.g. chose a syntax without side effects or even use
a config file per service.