fingerd [-wulf] [-pL path] [-t timeout]
DESCRIPTION
Fingerd is a simple daemon based on RFC1196 that provides an interface to
the ``finger'' program at most 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.
If the -w option is given, remote users will get an additional ``Welcome
to ...'' banner which also shows some informations (e.g. uptime, operat
ing system name and release) about the system the fingerd is running on.
Some sites may consider this a security risk as it gives out information
that may be useful to crackers.
If the -u option is given, requests of the form ``finger @host'' are re
jected.
If the -l option is given, information about requests made is logged.
This option probably violates users' privacy and should not be used on
multiuser boxes.
If the -f option is given, finger forwarding (user@host1@host2) is al
lowed. Useful behind firewalls, but probably not wise for security and
resource reasons.
The -p option allows specification of an alternate location for fingerd
to find the ``finger'' program. The -L option is equivalent.
The -t option specifies the time to wait for a request before closing the
connection. A value of 0 waits forever. The default is 60 seconds.
Options to fingerd should be specified in /etc/inetd.conf.
The finger protocol consists mostly of specifying command arguments. The
inetd(8) ``super-server'' runs fingerd for TCP requests received on port
79. Once connected fingerd reads a single command line terminated by a
<CRLF> which is passed to finger(1). It closes its connections as soon
as all output is finished.
If the line is empty (i.e. just a <CRLF> is sent) then finger returns a
``default'' report that lists all people logged into the system at that
moment. This feature is blocked by the -u option.
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.
SEE ALSO
finger(1), inetd(8)
RESTRICTIONS
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
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