[sane-devel] xinetd fails to start saned

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Hi Terry,

Terry Spearman writes:

> I can scan on the network if I run saned on the server  first.  After the
> scan, saned bails out, and I have to run saned on the server again if I want
> to do a second scan.  My understanding is that xinetd is supposed to load
> saned and keep it running in the background listening for scanner requests.
> Following the recommendations in
> http://www.sane-project.org/man/saned.8.html,
>
> I have added the following to /etc/xinetd.conf:
>
> # default = off
> # description: The sane server accepts requests
> # for network access to a local scanner via the network
>
> service sane-port
> {
>         port        = 6566
>         socket_type = stream
>         wait        = no
>         user        = saned
>         group       = saned
>         server      = /usr/sbin/saned
> }

You do have a saned user and group on your system, right?
Use

  cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd /etc/group | grep saned

You should see saned *twice*.

> Checking the status of xinetd I see:
>
> $ systemctl status xinetd -l
> ● xinetd.service - Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd
>    Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/xinetd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
>    Active: active (running) since Mon 2019-02-11 13:31:04 EST; 1min 46s ago
>   Process: 6974 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/xinetd -stayalive -pidfile /var/run/xinetd.pid $EXTRAOPTIONS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
> Main PID: 6982 (xinetd)
>    CGroup: /system.slice/xinetd.service
>            └─6982 /usr/sbin/xinetd -stayalive -pidfile /var/run/xinetd.pid
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: removing discard
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: removing echo
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: removing echo
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: removing tcpmux
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: removing time
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: removing time
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: bind failed (Permission denied (errno = 13)). service = sane-port

13?  That's bad luck ;-)

I think that would be EACCES (sic) which would indeed point to a
permissions issue.

> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: Service sane-port failed to start and is deactivated.
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: xinetd Version 2.3.15 started with libwrap loadavg labeled-networking options compiled in.
> Feb 11 13:31:04 server xinetd[6982]: Started working: 0 available services
>
> I changed the group of /usr/bin/saned  to saned and the permissions to 777:

Permission of 0755 should be good enough.  No point in allowing any
idiot on your system to modify saned ;-)

# FTR, I'm the biggest idiot on my own systems ;-)

> ls -l /usr/sbin/saned
> -rwxrwxrwx. 1 root saned 48552 Oct 30 12:46 /usr/sbin/saned

So, you do have a saned group.  What about a saned user?

> I still get the same message when I run systemctl status xinetd
>
> Any suggestions/help greatly appreciated

Hope this helps,
--
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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