Enabling rlogin and rsh?

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Level 1

15 points

Enabling rlogin and rsh?

Hello,

I am trying to enable rlogin and rsh on my Tiger 10.4.2. On Panther I remember this was fairly easy and could be done via the File Sharing Prefs. In Tiger this option seems to have vanished. Now, I could edit /etc/inetd.conf, but I don't see any inetd running, which I could "kill -1" to activate changes in that file like on other Unix systems. Can anyone help me with this?

Oh, I know the security implications of this, I know that one should never use those protocols, because everything is sent in plain, clear, readable text, incl. passwords. But I'm on a closed production network and I need maximum transfeer speed. The encryption of every single byte of data and subsequent decryption takes too much computing power and too much time. This is a high dataflow real-time application...

Thanks for your comments!

All the best from Norway,

Thomas

PS: I forgot to mention that I tried to use the search facility on this forum, but nothing really useful came up. 😟

Posted on Oct 12, 2005 3:59 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 12, 2005 5:01 AM in response to Thomas Ulich

Thomas,

OS X uses xinetd rather than inetd. so you'll need to create a file under the /etc/xinetd.d directory. you can just copy one of the others in there to use as a template. and rename it to rsh. the rshd binary is located under /usr/libexec/rshd.

also as you mentioned. you'll need to open up the ports.

see XINETD.CONF(5) and XINETD(8) for details

The easy way to do this, if you have access to a linux box would be to grab a copy from there.

Andy

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Answer 2

Thomas Ulich Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 12, 2005 6:59 AM in response to Nils C. Anderson

Andy,

thank you for your help! That was exactly what I needed. After putting the files and making sure the details reflect the commented-out line in /etc/inetd.conf, and making sure "disable = no" is set, I sent a kill -1 to the xinitd and all is well.

Thank again very much!

All the best,

Thomas

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Answer 3

Oct 13, 2005 7:46 PM in response to Thomas Ulich

Hi Thomas,
I'm glad you got it working but for what it's worth, the technique described here isn't the way it's meant to be done in Tiger. Inetd and xinetd have been replace by launchd. Launchd has a directory, /System/Library/LaunchDaemons, that contains configuration files for services, and cron-type jobs. There are files, /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/login.plist and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/shell.plist that control the rlogind and rshd daemons in basically the same way as the files in /etc/xinetd.d. To enable those services, simply delete the lines,

<key>Disabled</key>
<true/>

near the top of each file.

Probably the reason why these services can no longer be controled via System Preferences is that they are made obsolete by Secure Shell, SSH. I can't describe how strongly I recommend that you use that instead, if at all possible.
--
Gary
~~~~
Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time).
The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately."
-- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail

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