rsyncd.conf without --daemon?

[Philip Thompson]

Hello all,

I'm not a total newbie, but probably close enough.  I have tried to
find the answer to this question, but have been unsuccessful.

I'm testing out rsync over ssh using empty passphrases between 2
OpenBSD 3.5 boxes using rsync 2.5.7 (yes i know i should upgrade, but
can't because of BSD ports issues).

Everything seems to be working, but I'm very confused as to why it is
working.  I haven't started rsync in daemon mode on the box I'm
retrieving files from and there's nothing in /etc/inetd.conf either. 
I've placed an rsyncd.conf file in the directory of the rsync user and
it seems to be reading the file.  Is this normal?  The documentation
states that "The rsyncd.conf file is the runtime configuration file
for rsync wen run as an rsync server."  But as far as I can figure all
I've done is installed the rsync client on both boxes.

I guess my question is if rsyncd.conf is for daemon mode why/how is it
reading my rsyncd.conf file?  There is no rsync process running on my
target server so I'm guessing that it's because I'm using SSH as the
transport, but how does it know to use the rsyncd.conf file in that
particular directory or at all for that matter?

Happy it's working, but confused as to why.

Thanks in advance!!!