Re: xinetd log messages...?

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

will trillich <will@serensoft.com> wrote:
>i've not deciphered some of these XINETD messages just yet--
>if you can translate for me, or point me to The Path Of Enlightenment,
>lemme know:
>
>Sep 27 20:37:20 server xinetd[883]: bind failed (Address already in use
>(errno = 98)). service = telnet
>Sep 27 20:37:20 server xinetd[883]: bind failed (Address already in use
>(errno = 98)). service = smtp
>Sep 27 20:37:20 server xinetd[883]: bind failed (Address already in use
>(errno = 98)). service = ident 
>
>how do i find out what's already "using an address?"
>and how do i become convinced that ANYTHING is using it now?

Try 'netstat -a', or 'netstat -an' if it bogs down trying to do DNS
lookups. You might have to look for the port numbers from /etc/services
rather than the service names. (It will throw several pages of
information at you on a busy server.)

The messages above indicate that some other service on your machine is
already listening on the given ports.

>the only service i use 'bind' in is telnet, to restrict it to my
>secure internal 192.168.*.*, so it won't show up on any nmap scan
>of my internet-visible ip address...

bind() is a system call; *everything* that listens on a socket calls it.
'man 2 bind' if you need to do socket programming.

>Sep 27 20:52:00 server xinetd[1005]: warning: can't get client address:
>Invalid argument
>Sep 27 20:54:51 server xinetd[1005]: warning: can't get client address:
>Invalid argument
>
>argument... from where? what client address are we looking for?

That's how the C library describes the EINVAL error code, which is a
fairly vague error saying "you passed the wrong argument to this
function". I can't see anywhere in the source code where xinetd prints
this message, though; maybe it's something xinetd calls, or maybe I'm
missing something.

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]