4 <h1>Jinetd: inetd for Java</h1>
8 Jinetd does for TCP what servlet containers do for HTTP.
10 <h3> Isn't HTTP all that matters? </h3>
12 There are now Java servers for almost every network protocol: HTTP,
13 SMTP, IMAP, POP3, NNTP, DNS, SSH, CIFS/SMB, and plenty of others.
14 Using servers written in buffer-overflow-free languages is the most
15 important step towards maintaining network security and stopping
20 Jinetd listens on the ports and interfaces you specify. When it
21 receives a connection, it loads the code designated to handle that
22 protocol and hands off the connection.
24 <h3> Isn't that trivially simple? </h3>
26 While jinetd is an extremely lightweight server, it allows multiple
27 different network protocol handlers to share the following facilities:
29 <ul><li> No need for "start", "stop", or "reload" commands:
31 <li> Automatic reloading of services when a .jar, .class, or
32 .java file changes; just drop in the new code or
33 <tt>touch</tt> the jar file to trigger a restart.
35 <li> Services can add their own configuration files to the
38 <li> Connections are always accepted immediately, even if the
39 service's code is still initializing itself. The
40 connection is paused until the service finishes loading,
41 at which point it is handled. No more "503 Server
42 Unavailable" messages for your users when you restart a
43 context; the user just experiences a brief delay before
47 <li> Edit-in-place development
49 <li> Automatic compilation of .java files for a service;
50 automatic reload once compilation completes
55 <li> jinetd is usually invoked from a "respawn" line in /etc/inittab
57 <li> when it detects that its .jar files have been modified,
58 it exits and lets init respawn it
60 <li> when resources run critically low (ie low memory), jinetd
61 will abort the JVM and let init respawn it -- the only
62 way to kill runaway threads in Java.
65 <li> No configuration files to edit -- host-to-service and
66 port-to-service mappings are inferred from directory layout.
68 <li> Shared virtual host settings
70 <li> Arrange your content by (virtual) host rather than by service
71 -- for example, the HTTP and NNTP content for
72 "www.megacz.com" are kept side by side in
73 "/jinetd/host/com/megacz/HTTP" and
74 "/jinetd/host/com/megacz/NNTP".