Port Monitor/Service Interface

The interface between a port monitor and a service is determined solely by the service. Two mechanisms for invoking a service are presented here as examples.

New Service Invocations

The first interface is for services that are started anew with each request. This interface requires the port monitor to first fork() a child process. The child eventually becomes the designated service by performing an exec(). Before the exec() happens, the port monitor might take some port monitor-specific action. However, one action that must occur is the interpretation of the per-service configuration script, if one is present. This interpretation is done by calling the library routine doconfig().

Standing Service Invocations

The second interface is for invocations of services that are actively running. To use this interface, a service must have one end of a stream pipe open and be prepared to receive connections through it.