inetd.conf user environment

[Pierre B. Samson]

What happend when inetd start a service (user proc) under a user name?
ex: "mate stream tcp nowait user1 /usr/local/bin/mate 3"

Is the /etc/passwd file read, does the HOMEDIR is set, is the ~/.profile read and passed to the proc by inetd?

Thanks
Pierre B. Samson
CAMBAR
psamson@cambarsoft.com

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

In your case, /usr/local/bin/mate does no more and no less than what it is instructed to do. In essence, the uid is set to that of user1 and the program is exec'ed with stdin and stdout connected to the socket. After that, whatever is done is the sole responsibilty of the programmer including setting up the environment.