Re: tcpsvd vs. tcpserver

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 11:34:11PM -0600, Vincent Danen wrote:
> On 23-Sep-04, at 9:55 AM, Gerrit Pape wrote:
> >If an ipsvd has trouble opening or reading the instructions directory
> >or cdb, it closes/drops the connection.  So if the cdb doesn't exist,
> >the connection is denied; a feature similar to tcpserver's -X option
> >isn't supported currently.
> 
> Ok, but looking at:
> 
> http://smarden.org/ipsvd/examples.html
> 
> I see it state for the in.telnetd example that by default all 
> connections are permitted.  It's not using a cdb but the ./peers 
> directory.  If I have an empty directory that ipsvd is looking at, does 
> it allow all connections?  It seems to imply that.  But when I look at 
> the ipsvd-instruct.5.html page I see the "catchall file 0", which seems 
> to contradict what I thought the example page implied.  (I'm likely 

If the directory or cdb specified as command line option doesn't exist,
it's an error, and ipsvd drops connections; if the directory exists, and
is empty, the default action is taken: allow all connections.  You can
override the default action with the catchall file; an empty file ``0''
with mode 400 doesn't change anything (allow connections), but if you
make it mode 000 for example, the default now is to drop connections.

> I think using the directory makes more sense since the directory needs 
> to exist anyways (I can see it being different for a large directory 
> with a lot of rules, but I think by and large the directory method 
> would be the simplest).

One downside is that you shouldn't edit the files in the instructions
directory in place, ipsvd can open and read them at any time when it's
running.

Regards, Gerrit.