Network Programming with Perl

Chapter 14. Bulletproofing Servers

In Chapter 10 we developed subroutines that perform some of the startup time tasks that are common among production servers in the UNIX environment, including disconnecting from the controlling terminal, autobackgrounding, and writing a copy of the server's PID to a run-time file. Together, these help to make network servers more manageable.

Because of their position as a gateway to entry to the host, network daemons are particularly prone to opening security holes. There is much more that we can do to make network daemons bullet-proof. In addition to the techniques already discussed, a production server often implements one or more of the following useful features:

1. Log status messages to the system error log. ...