TCPD(8)			    System Manager's Manual		       TCPD(8)



NAME
       tcpd - access control facility for internet services

DESCRIPTION
       The tcpd program can be set up to monitor incoming requests for telnet,
       finger, ftp, exec, rsh, rlogin, tftp, talk, comsat and  other  services
       that have a one-to-one mapping onto executable files.

       The  program  supports  both  4.3BSD-style sockets and System V.4-style
       TLI.  Functionality may be limited when the protocol underneath TLI  is
       not an internet protocol.

       Operation  is  as  follows: whenever a request for service arrives, the
       inetd daemon is tricked into running the tcpd program  instead  of  the
       desired	server. tcpd logs the request and does some additional checks.
       When all is well, tcpd runs the appropriate  server  program  and  goes
       away.

       Optional	 features  are:	 pattern-based access control, client username
       lookups with the RFC 931 etc. protocol, protection against  hosts  that
       pretend	to  have someone elses host name, and protection against hosts
       that pretend to have someone elses network address.

LOGGING
       Connections that are monitored by tcpd are reported  through  the  sys-
       log(3)  facility.  Each	record	contains a time stamp, the client host
       name and the name of the requested service.   The  information  can  be
       useful  to detect unwanted activities, especially when logfile informa-
       tion from several hosts is merged.

       In order to find out where your logs are going, examine the syslog con-
       figuration file, usually /etc/syslog.conf.

ACCESS CONTROL
       Optionally, tcpd supports a simple form of access control that is based
       on pattern matching.  The access-control software  provides  hooks  for
       the execution of shell commands when a pattern fires.  For details, see
       the hosts_access(5) manual page.

HOST NAME VERIFICATION
       The authentication scheme of some protocols  (rlogin,  rsh)  relies  on
       host  names.  Some  implementations believe the host name that they get
       from any random name server; other implementations are more careful but
       use a flawed algorithm.

       tcpd   verifies	 the   client  host  name  that	 is  returned  by  the
       address->name DNS server by looking at the host name and	 address  that
       are  returned  by  the name->address DNS server.	 If any discrepancy is
       detected, tcpd concludes that it is dealing with a host	that  pretends
       to have someone elses host name.

       If the sources are compiled with -DPARANOID, tcpd will drop the connec-
       tion in case of a host name/address mismatch.  Otherwise, the  hostname
       can  be matched with the PARANOID wildcard, after which suitable action
       can be taken.

HOST ADDRESS SPOOFING
       Optionally, tcpd disables source-routing socket options on  every  con-
       nection	that  it  deals with. This will take care of most attacks from
       hosts that pretend to have an address that  belongs  to	someone	 elses
       network. UDP services do not benefit from this protection. This feature
       must be turned on at compile time.

RFC 931
       When RFC 931 etc. lookups are enabled (compile-time option)  tcpd  will
       attempt	to  establish  the  name of the client user. This will succeed
       only if the client host runs an RFC 931-compliant daemon.  Client  user
       name  lookups  will not work for datagram-oriented connections, and may
       cause noticeable delays in the case of connections from PCs.

EXAMPLES
       The details of using tcpd depend on pathname information that was  com-
       piled into the program.

EXAMPLE 1
       This  example  applies when tcpd expects that the original network dae-
       mons will be moved to an "other" place.

       In order to monitor access to the finger	 service,  move	 the  original
       finger daemon to the "other" place and install tcpd in the place of the
       original finger daemon. No changes are required to configuration files.

	    # mkdir /other/place
	    # mv /usr/etc/in.fingerd /other/place
	    # cp tcpd /usr/etc/in.fingerd

       The example assumes that the network daemons live in /usr/etc. On  some
       systems,	 network daemons live in /usr/sbin or in /usr/libexec, or have
       no `in.' prefix to their name.

EXAMPLE 2
       This example applies when tcpd expects that  the	 network  daemons  are
       left in their original place.

       In order to monitor access to the finger service, perform the following
       edits on the  inetd  configuration  file	 (usually  /etc/inetd.conf  or
       /etc/inet/inetd.conf):

	    finger  stream  tcp	 nowait	 nobody	 /usr/etc/in.fingerd  in.fingerd

       becomes:

	    finger  stream  tcp	 nowait	 nobody	 /some/where/tcpd     in.fingerd


       The  example assumes that the network daemons live in /usr/etc. On some
       systems, network daemons live in /usr/sbin or in /usr/libexec, the dae-
       mons have no `in.' prefix to their name, or there is no userid field in
       the inetd configuration file.

       Similar changes will be needed for the other services that  are	to  be
       covered	by  tcpd.   Send a `kill -HUP' to the inetd(8) process to make
       the changes effective. AIX users may also have to execute the `inetimp'
       command.

EXAMPLE 3
       In the case of daemons that do not live in a common directory ("secret"
       or otherwise), edit the inetd configuration file so that	 it  specifies
       an absolute path name for the process name field. For example:

	   ntalk  dgram	 udp  wait  root  /some/where/tcpd  /usr/local/lib/ntalkd


       Only  the  last	component  (ntalkd)  of	 the pathname will be used for
       access control and logging.

BUGS
       Some UDP (and RPC) daemons linger around for a while  after  they  have
       finished	 their	work,  in case another request comes in.  In the inetd
       configuration file these services are registered with the wait  option.
       Only the request that started such a daemon will be logged.

       The  program  does  not work with RPC services over TCP. These services
       are registered as rpc/tcp in the inetd  configuration  file.  The  only
       non-trivial  service that is affected by this limitation is rexd, which
       is used by the on(1) command. This is no great loss.  On most  systems,
       rexd is less secure than a wildcard in /etc/hosts.equiv.

       RPC  broadcast requests (for example: rwall, rup, rusers) always appear
       to come from the responding host.  What	happens	 is  that  the	client
       broadcasts  the	request	 to  all  portmap daemons on its network; each
       portmap daemon forwards the request to a local daemon. As  far  as  the
       rwall etc.  daemons know, the request comes from the local host.

FILES
       The default locations of the host access control tables are:

       /etc/hosts.allow
       /etc/hosts.deny

SEE ALSO
       hosts_access(5), format of the tcpd access control tables.
       syslog.conf(5), format of the syslogd control file.
       inetd.conf(5), format of the inetd control file.

AUTHORS
       Wietse Venema (wietse@wzv.win.tue.nl),
       Department of Mathematics and Computing Science,
       Eindhoven University of Technology
       Den Dolech 2, P.O. Box 513,
       5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands




								       TCPD(8)