Learn how to restart inetd service in Linux. Xinetd service is a replacement for inetd service in new Linux versions.

inetd is internet daemon. Inetd is responsible for internet services like telnet, pop3, ftp, etc. Whenever a packet comes over the network to a server on a particular port, inetd is responsible to check it and launch the appropriate program to handle the connection request. For checking port information and its related services it consults /etc/services file.

Below is a list of commands to manage inetd service. In newer systems inetd is replaced with more powerful daemon xinetd.

Start inetd service

# /etc/init.d/inetd start

Stop inetd service

# /etc/init.d/inetd stop

Restart inetd service

# /etc/init.d/inetd restart OR # killall -HUP inetd

All inetd configuration can be found in file /etc/inetd.conf

On newer systems, inetd is being replaced by xinetd. xinetd is an Extended internet daemon. If you fail to run above command your system probably runs xinetd as an inetd replacement. In that case, follow below commands –

Start inetd service

# service xinetd start 

Stop inetd service

# service xinetd stop

Restart inetd service

# service xinetd restart

Check xinetd service state

root@kerneltalks # service xinetd status
● xinetd.service - Xinetd A Powerful Replacement For Inetd
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/xinetd.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-01-02 17:17:31 EST; 6s ago
 Main PID: 17135 (xinetd)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 512)
   CGroup: /system.slice/xinetd.service
           └─17135 /usr/sbin/xinetd -stayalive -dontfork

All the services being handled by xinetd can be found under/etc/xinetd.d directory. Each service has its own configuration file under /etc/xinetd.d directory.