Xinetd is a replacement for inetd, the internet services daemon.

Xinetd is not just an inetd replacement. Anybody can use it to
start servers that don't require privileged ports because xinetd
does not require that the services in its configuration file be
listed in /etc/services.

Its configuration file has a different format than inetd's one
and it understands different signals. However the signal-to-action 
assignment can be changed.

WWW: http://www.xinetd.org/