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Date: 	Tue, 10 Jun 1997 20:43:10 -0400
From: edward.ing@utoronto.ca
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Subject: User server daemons listening on SOCKETS?
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Is it possible to programme a server daemon that listens on a Socket 
and then spawns a new connection process to provide the service to
run under a users environment rather than the root environment.
 
For example I was going to write a Java server to run a user account and
distribute a client so that users of the client can connact my
server over the internet. I don't have root access to unix box on the
'Net so I would like to resort to running a service from my user
account.

Is this easily accomplished? Or will unix kernels not allow this
kind of "sockets-on-user-demand" processes?

If I can, how can I write a routine to automatically determine which
ports are free so my server will not spawn a process which will uses a
port that another daemon on the host is using?

What security loop-holes might there be?

edward.ing@utoronto.ca