NAME
fingerd —
remote user information
server
SYNOPSIS
fingerd |
[-s] [-l]
[-p filename] |
DESCRIPTION
Thefingerd utility uses a simple protocol based on
RFC 1196 that provides an interface to
finger(1) at several network sites. It is supposed to return a
friendly, human-oriented status report on either the system at the moment or a
particular person in depth. There is no required format and the protocol
consists mostly of specifying a single “command line”, thus,
fingerd can also be used to implement other protocols
in conjunction with the -p flag.
The fingerd utility is started by
inetd(8), which listens for TCP requests at port 79. Once connected
it reads a single command line terminated by a ⟨CRLF⟩ which is
passed to finger(1). The fingerd utility closes
its connections as soon as the output is finished.
If the line is null (i.e., just a ⟨CRLF⟩ is sent) then finger(1) returns a “default” report that lists all people logged into the system at that moment.
If a user name is specified (e.g. eric⟨CRLF⟩) then the response lists more extended information for only that particular user, whether logged in or not. Allowable “names” in the command line include both “login names” and “user names”. If a name is ambiguous, all possible derivations are returned.
The following options may be passed to
fingerd as server program arguments in
/etc/inetd.conf:
-s- Enable secure mode. Queries without a user name are rejected and forwarding of queries to other remote hosts is denied.
-l- Enable logging. The name of the host originating the query is reported via syslog(3) at LOG_NOTICE priority.
-p- Use an alternate program as the local information provider. The default
local program executed by
fingerdis finger(1). By specifying a customized local server, this option allows a system manager to have more control over what information is provided to remote sites. If-pis specified,fingerdwill also set the environment variableFINGERD_REMOTE_HOSTto the name of the host making the request.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The fingerd utility appeared in
4.3BSD.
BUGS
Connecting directly to the server from a TIP or an equally
narrow-minded TELNET-protocol user program can result in meaningless
attempts at option negotiation being sent to the server, which will foul up
the command line interpretation. The fingerd utility
should be taught to filter out IAC´s and perhaps even respond
negatively (IAC WON'T) to all option commands received.