xinetd - unable to write to a file

Question

Running CentOS. xinetd.d/clhtest entry is as follows:

service clhtest
{
        disable                 = no
        port                    = 8020
        socket_type             = stream
        protocol                = tcp
        wait                    = no
        user                    = charrison
        passenv                 = PATH
        server                  = /home/charrison/bin/clhtest
}

In debugging this I need to write to a file. I set the server process up to open /home/charrison/log/foo.txt as one of the first steps (note user=charrison), but it doesn't - and I assume it tries to. When I launch the server program from command line it opens the file successfully.

I suspect the umask parameter may be needed, but I don't know what it defaults to.

Any hints?