When I log onto IRC I get this:
Well ok that make sense as ident2 is not running but when I try to start it:
So I give inetd a HUP and then I can start ident2. Question is, what am I supposed to be running? Both inetd & ident2? If so how to get them to behave together?

TIA

I've been looking at the IRC ident error myself and have found that it could be caused by not running identd or ident2, firewall configuration, ident configuration, and a few other things. I'm still struggling with this, but have narrowed it down to a bad return code when ka_lookup is invoked by identd.

I believe the port binding trouble you are experiencing is because you have inetd configured to listen to port 113. Check /etc/inetd.conf to see if you have an entry which looks like...

auth stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/in.identd in.identd -l -e -o

If so, you have a conflict between trying to start up ident2 which wants port 113 and inetd which is already listening on port 113. I haven't used ident2 before, but assume it is some variant of identd or going back even further authd. You can try two things, one comment out the #auth line in inetd.conf and restart inetd. Then start up ident2. The other option would be to replace the later part of the auth line with the location of ident2 and any options you might need. Use man inetd to help with the specifics of inetd.conf. It wouldn't hurt to restart inetd after changes to the conf file.

After implementing one of those options try IRC again. If you still have an identity crisis then you're where I'm at, otherwise life is good.

Bill

im not sure here, but this sounds like what ive been pondering fixing for a while on my system.

identd runs it works fine when someone manually telnets to the port... responces appear to look okay.

BUT.. irc wont recognize it.

turns out standard identd that comes with most distro's isnt NAT aware.
sooo
oidentd or sidentd i have to move to but of yet to find the time/effort to bother with it since its not a huge issue.