tftpd-hpa does not use /etc/default/tftp-hpa options

Confirmed. The solution suggested here would fix bug 181017.

Happy Trails,

Loye Young
Isaac & Young Computer Company
Laredo, Texas
http://www.iycc.biz

One further problem with the tftpd-hpa package is that it depends on inet-superserver despite being able to run perfectly well without one. I discovered with some surprise that openbsd-inetd had been dragged in somehow, and attempts to purge it would remove tftpd-hpa.

The relationship between tftpd-hpa and inet-superservers really needs to be re-thought. I wish to run it as a standalone daemon, and I do not want inetd on my systems.

Furthermore, the feedback from /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa left no clue that it had failed to bind to UDP port 69 (thanks to inetd claiming it) beyond lack of a newline. Perhaps the init script could provide better feedback about the daemon/inetd situation even if nothing else is done.

There are some reasonable tradeoffs between using inet and running
standalone, and it's possible to run tftpd-hpa in either mode. Which
one is better depends on the use case, so we should preserve the
ability to choose. However, I also usually use standalone (i.e. not
inet), and I agree that the whole thing, including the defaults,
should be rethought and streamlined.

>>attempts to purge it would remove tftpd-hpa
The problem here isn't the package or the dependencies (which are
correctly stated); it's the package manager. Apt-get and the graphical
managers often don't "Do the Right Thing" (tm). Instead, use aptitude
for package management. It almost always gets the answers right, and
when there are alternative solutions, it presents choices for the
system admin. If you need very fine-grained control, aptitude's
full-screen mode is unbelievably powerful, and allows you to play
minesweeper on just about any computer in the world. :-)

Happy Trails,

Loye Young
Isaac & Young Computer Company
Laredo, Texas
http://www.iycc.net

To run tftpd-hpa as a daemon:

#purge old config
sudo aptitude purge tftpd-hpa openbsd-inetd

# install only tftpd-hpa
sudo aptitude -R install tftpd-hpa

# enable RUN_DAEMON
sudo sed -i 's/.*RUN_DAEMON.*/RUN_DAEMON="yes"/' /etc/default/tftpd-hpa

# disable tftp inetd supervision
sudo sed -i 's/^tftp/#<off># tftp/' /etc/inetd.conf # has the same effect as: sudo update-inetd --disable tftp

## if needed
sudo update-rc.d -f tftpd-hpa remove # remove auto boot
sudo update-rc.d tftpd-hpa start 20 2 3 4 5 . stop 20 1 . # reinstall auto boot
# sudo /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa restart is broken (the restart script exits after executing the first stop), use instead:
sudo /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa stop
sudo /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa start

I am not able observer / reproduce this issue in Ubuntu 9.04.

When I install tftp-hpa in karmic (9.10) installs openbsd-inetd. Both the startup scripts for these two packages are installed in /etc/init.d/. However, by default tftp-hpa is set to not run by default with the RUN_DAEMON=yes set while openbsd-inetd starts up tftpd anyway, because of its default /etc/inetd.conf. I like the tftp-hpa default behavior best. If for some reason openbsd-inetd is needed, then, I'd prefer inetd.conf disable in.tftpd by default.

tftpd-hpa no longer supports running with inetd (since >=5.0-1 as shipped in Lucid) so this bug is no longer relevant.