inetd and umask 000

[David Anderson_18]

In the /sbin/init.d/inet.d file I see the umask is set to 000 just before
starting inetd. So when applications started by inetd create files, they have
perms allowing others to write to them.

Any known ramifications of starting inetd with a umask of 022, which would be
much more secure?

[Alan Riggs_1]

The main ramification that I can think of is that the umask which inetd is
started with carry over to the services it spawns. In particular, it should
affect the permissions settings of the tty connections when someone logs into
the sever remotely. It is fairly easy to test, though, if you have a test
system you can play with. Simply kill the current inetd, and start a new one
as root, with your umask set appropriately. inetd will inherit your umask then
(make sure to use the executable, not the /sbin/init.d script).