rpc.rexd is the Sun RPC server for remote program execution. This daemon is started by inetd(1M) whenever a remote execution request is made.

For non-interactive programs, the standard file descriptors are connected directly to TCP connections. Interactive programs involve pseudo-terminals, in a fashion that is similar to the login sessions provided by rlogin(1). This daemon may use NFS to mount file systems specified in the remote execution request.

The following options are supported:

-s

Secure. When specified, requests must have valid DES credentials. If the request does not have a DES credential it is rejected. The default publickey credential is rejected. Only newer on(1) commands send DES credentials.

If access is denied with an authentication error, you may have to set your publickey with the chkey(1) command.

Specifying the -s option without presenting secure credentials will result in an error message: Unix too weak auth (DesONly)!

rpc.rexd uses pam(3PAM) for account and session management. The PAM configuration policy, listed through /etc/pam.conf, specifies the modules to be used for rpc.rexd. Here is a partial pam.conf file with rpc.rexd entries for account and session management using the UNIX module.

rpc.rexd   account requisite       pam_roles.so.1
rpc.rexd   account required        pam_projects.so.1
rpc.rexd   account required        pam_unix_account.so.1

rpc.rexd      session required      pam_unix_session.so.1

If there are no entries for the rpc.rexd service, then the entries for the "other" service will be used. rpc.rexd uses the getpwuid() call to determine whether the given user is a legal user.

/dev/ptsn

Pseudo-terminals used for interactive mode

/etc/passwd

Authorized users

/tmp_rex/rexd??????

Temporary mount points for remote file systems

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

chkey(1), on(1), rlogin(1), inetd(1M), pam(3PAM), inetd.conf(4), pam.conf(4), publickey(4), attributes(5), pam_authtok_check(5), pam_authtok_get(5), pam_authtok_store(5), pam_dhkeys(5), pam_passwd_auth(5), pam_unix(5), pam_unix_account(5), pam_unix_auth(5), pam_unix_session(5)

Diagnostic messages are normally printed on the console, and returned to the requestor.

Root cannot execute commands using rexd client programs such as on(1).

The pam_unix(5) module might not be supported in a future release. Similar functionality is provided by pam_authtok_check(5), pam_authtok_get(5), pam_authtok_store(5), pam_dhkeys(5), pam_passwd_auth(5), pam_unix_account(5), pam_unix_auth(5), and pam_unix_session(5).