Table of Contentsfingerd - remote user information server fingerd Fingerd is a simple protocol based on 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. If the option is given, remote users will get an additional "Welcome to ..." banner which also shows some informations (e.g. uptime, operating system name and release) about the system the fingerd is running on. There is no required format and the protocol consists mostly of specifying a single
Fingerd listens for TCP requests at port 79. Once connected it reads a single command line terminated by a 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 is sent) then returns a report that lists all people logged into the system at that moment.
If a user name is specified (e.g. then the response lists more extended information for only that particular user, whether logged in or not. Allowable in the command line include both and If a name is ambiguous, all possible derivations are returned.
finger (1) Connecting directly to the server from a TIP or an equally narrow-minded TELNET Ns -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 Ns 's and perhaps even respond negatively to all option commands received. The command appeared in
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