NAME
fingerd —
remote user information
server
SYNOPSIS
fingerd |
[-8ghlmpSsu]
[-P
filename] |
DESCRIPTION
fingerd is a simple protocol based on RFC 1288 that provides
an interface to the
finger(1)
program at several network sites. The program 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”.
fingerd is started by
inetd(8), which listens for TCP
requests at port 79. Once handed a connection,
fingerd reads
a single command line terminated by a ⟨CRLF⟩ which it then
passes to
finger(1).
fingerd 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:
-
-
- -8
- Enable 8-bit output.
-
-
- -g
- Do not show any gecos information besides the users' real
names.
-
-
- -h
- Display the name of the remote host in short mode, instead
of the office location and office phone.
-
-
- -l
- Enable logging. The name of the host originating the query,
and the actual request is reported via
syslog(3) at LOG_NOTICE
priority. A request of the form ‘/W’ or ‘/w’ will
return long output. Empty requests will return all currently logged in
users. All other requests look for specific users. See RFC 1288 for
details.
-
-
- -m
- Prevent matching of user names.
User is usually a login name; however, matching will
also be done on the users' real names, unless the -m
option is supplied.
-
-
- -P
filename
- Use an alternate program as the local information provider.
The default local program executed by fingerd is
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.
-
-
- -p
- Prevents
finger(1) from displaying
the contents of the “.plan” and
“.project” files.
-
-
- -S
- Prints user information in short mode, one line per user.
This overrides the “Whois switch” that may
be passed in from the remote client.
-
-
- -s
- Disable forwarding of queries to other remote hosts.
-
-
- -u
- Queries without a user name are rejected.
SEE ALSO
finger(1),
inetd(8)
HISTORY
The
fingerd command 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.
fingerd should be taught to filter out IAC's
and perhaps even respond negatively (IAC WON'T) to all option commands
received.