FINGERD(8) MachTen System Manager’s Manual FINGERD(8)

NAME
fingerd - remote user information server

SYNOPSIS
fingerd [-s] [-l] [-p filename]

DESCRIPTION
Fingerd is a simple protocol based on RFC1196 that provides an interface
to the Name and Finger programs 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 re-
quired format and the protocol consists mostly of specifying a single
‘‘command line’’.

Fingerd 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).
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 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 deriva-
tions are returned.

The following options may be passed to fingerd as server program argu-
ments 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 fingerd is finger(1). By spec-
ifying a customized local server, this option allows a system
manager to have more control over what information is provided to
remote sites.