Internet Services
On a Linux system using TCP/IP, the principle is the same. There are dozens of services that one can connect to, but only one way into the system, that's through your network interface card. In order for you to be able to connect to the right service, there has to be something like an operator to make the connection for you. This is the program /etc/inetd. This is the "Internet Daemon" and often referred to as a "super server" since it is inetd's responsibility to wait for requests to access the other servers on your system and pass you along.
Like in our office building, you may know what number you want, that is, which port. When you make the connection to inetd, your process tells it what port you want to connect to and inetd makes the connection. On the other hand, you may have a program that does not have a well-known port. Therefore a new port needs to get created.
The inetd daemon "listens" for the connections. You can say that it is listening on multiple ports in the sense that it manages all the ports. However, it is inetd that makes the connection between the incoming connection and the local port, and therefore to the local server. This mechanism saves memory since you don't need to start up the servers you aren't going to use. This is similar to having a central switchboard and not requiring every office to have their own.
Normally, inetd is started during system start up from a script under /etc/rc.d. When it starts, inetd reads its configuration file (/etc/inetd.conf) to obtain the necessary information to start the various servers. It then builds the logical connection between the server and its respective port. Kind of like laying the cable from the central switchboard to the various offices. Technically it creates a socket, which is bound to the port for that server.
When inetd gets a connection request (the phone rings) for a connection-based port, it "accepts" the incoming call which creates a new socket. That is, there is a logical connection between the incoming request and the server. Inetd can now continue to listen on the original port for addition incoming calls.
If the port is connection-less (UDP), the behavior is dependent on entries in the /etc/inetd.conf file. If inetd is told to wait (there is a wait in the fourth column), then the server that was called must process the incoming message before inetd can go on. If told not to wait (there is a nowait in the fourth column), inetd will continue to process incoming requests on that port. If you look in /etc/inetd.conf you see that almost exclusively TCP ports are no wait and UDP ports are wait.
Note that the inetd will start the program listed in /etc/inetd.conf based on the port requestion (which is listed in /etc/services). However, if the appropriate program is already running, there is no need for inetd to start it. Therefore, you may have an entry in /etc/services, but not in /etc/inetd.conf. Services that are not started by inetd are usually referred to as "stand-alone" services. You may have case (like HTTP or FTP) where the program (i.e. the service) is already running, there is no entry in /etc/services. This is because such services us well-known ports and typically nothing else is going to try to use them. However, if you have a "non-standard" program using a special port, then it needs to write an entry in /etc/services to ensure that other programs do not inadvertently use that port.
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