Activation of inetd Server

[sauberhorn]

Hi all,

I replaced my old prefabricated NAS by a new, "hand-made" system and set up freeNAS 8.0.1 as operating system. Now, I started to play around with the system and try to understand its features. Thus, carefully phrased, I am far from being an freeNAS expert :). The basic functionality I need is working well, however, for my purposes, I have to activate the inetd server. What I did to reach this is:

• made the system readable: mount -wu /
• extend /conf/base/etc/defaults/rc.conf by adding the line: inetd_enable="YES"
• set the file-system readonly again: mount -ro /
• rebooted by the system: shutdown -r now

After the restart, the changes are successfully taken over to the /etc/rc.conf config file. When I now request the status of inetd by using /etc/rc.d/inetd rcvar, I got the following output:

# inetd
#
inetd_enable="NO"
# (default: "")
​

This output is in line with my observation that the inetd server is not running. Furthermore, it cannot be started manually by /etc/rc.d/inetd start. This leads to the following output:

Will not 'start' inetd because inetd_enable is NO.
​

This leads to the following questions:

• Did I add the configuration to the wrong file?
• Did I oversee something?
• Is the observed behavior a feature I do not expect?

I would be happy if anyone could try to reproduce the behavior or give an explanation. Please tell me if you need further information. Thanks for the help!


---8<---
FreeNas Build: FreeNAS-8.0.1-RELEASE-amd64 (8081)
/etc/rc.conf / /conf/base/etc/defaults/rc.conf:

#!/bin/sh

# This file is explicitly in the public domain. You may do with it
# anything you like.

# Fallback settings for FreeNAS. This file is read in first and is
# then overidden by the values in the database.

# *** need to clean this up

hostname="freenas"
sshd_enable="YES"
inetd_enable="YES"

sendmail_enable="NONE" # Run the sendmail inbound daemon (YES/NO).

dumpdev="NO" # Device to crashdump to (device name, AUTO, or NO).
background_fsck="NO"

harvest_interrupt="NO" # Entropy device harvests interrupt randomness
harvest_ethernet="NO" # Entropy device harvests ethernet randomness
harvest_p_to_p="NO" # Entropy device harvests point-to-point randomness

synchronous_dhclient="YES" # Start dhclient directly on configured

ntpd_enable="YES"
ntpd_sync_on_start="YES"

# open-vm-tools
vmware_guest_vmblock_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmhgfs_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmmemctl_enable="YES"
vmware_guest_vmxnet_enable="YES"
vmware_guestd_enable="YES"

# Silence syslogd about missing files
syslogd_flags="-s -C"

collectd_enable="YES"

fusefs_enable="YES"

devfs_system_ruleset="usbrules"
lighttpd_enable=YES

 

[ProtoSD]

Hi sauberhorn,

First I'd like to commend you on including relevant details and showing that you actually looked for an answer, it really helps to know your level of knowledge and saves asking 50 questions to give you an answer.

I did some digging, it seems that like the settings for most of the services in FreeNAS, the inetd_enable is set in the FreeNAS database, but not where you'd expect to find it. You need to enable the 'tftp' service under Services->Control Services in the GUI and then inetd will be started. It's a bit of a hack, but maybe it will get it's own GUI entry down the road.

I hope that answers your question and enables you to accomplish what you were trying to do.

 

[sauberhorn]

Hi protosd,

yes, the workaround you propose is working perfectly fine.
From my point of view, having an entry in the GUI to exclusively active inetd would be a feature that significantly increases the flexibility of the system.

Thank you for the quick reply and your help!