EFINGERD(8)

💖 EFINGERD 💖

okay bestie, so this is efingerd — another finger daemon for linux — and it lives in section 8 of the System Manager's Manual, aka the "system manager" girlies' corner. let's get into it 💅

---

✨ NAME ✨

efingerd — another finger daemon for linux 🦋

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

efingerd [-t X] [-f] [-n] [-u] [--help] [--version]

efingerd should be run from inetd. that's the whole vibe, no cap.

---

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

efingerd is another finger daemon, and the way it ate is that it gives you complete control over what you're going to display about your computer. like, full main character energy over your own machine's info. periodt. 👑

---

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --help — show a lil summary of the options and dip. 💨
• --version — show the version and dip. same energy.
• -t X — lifetime for spawned services, in seconds. like, ex: -t 25 means maintain connections for up to 25 seconds. (default: -t 60) ⏳
• -n — do not lookup addresses, use IP numbers instead. no reverse DNS, we're keeping it raw. 🔥
• -i — use ident service to query the name of the fingerer. 👀
• -f — do not display users' full names. privacy era, we love to see it. 🙈
• -u — ignore user-specific .efingerd file. sorry bestie, not today. 💀

---

🦋 USAGE 🦋

so if you're just an ordinary user and efingerd is already installed by your friendly administrator, you can absolutely take advantage of it — the move is to make an executable .efingerd in your home directory. and literally it can be anything: from a single shell script to a program written in super-hyper-extra-object-oriented language. only speed makes a difference, iykyk. ⚡

this program takes two arguments:

1. the name of the remote user fingering you (or (null) if his/her/its system does not run ident)
2. the address of his computer (or ip number, if efingerd is installed with option -n)

the standard output of this program is then displayed to the person fingering you. and yes, go look at examples/.efingerd for a nice example. ✨

---

🌈 the /etc/efingerd squad 🌈

following executables are providing information about your machine to the fingerer:

• /etc/efingerd/list — what to display when somebody does finger @your.machine 💻
• /etc/efingerd/luser — what to display when somebody fingers a user on your machine, and the fingered user does not have a ~/.efingerd file
• /etc/efingerd/nouser — what to display when somebody fingers a non-existent user on your machine 🫥

if the local user has a file .efingerd in his/her/its home directory, and it is readable by the daemon, it will be executed and its output will be served to the fingerer. slay. 💅

---

⭐ the args, bestie ⭐

these are normal programs, displaying on standard output the desired information. they're called with the following parameters:

• $1 — identity of remote user, (null) if his/her/its system is not running ident
• $2 — address of remote machine (IP number if it has not got a reverse DNS entry, or if you specified -n)
• $3 — name of local user being fingered

look at examples/ for examples. 👑

🚨 and do not forget that these programs must be executable by the efingerd daemon. no exec permission, no vibes.

---

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

finger(1), fingerd(8)

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Radovan Garabík (garabik@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk) — iconic, honestly. 💖

---

💀 BUGS 💀

the file .efingerd in the user's home directory must be executable and readable by the UID efingerd runs under for it to work. that's it, that's the bug. 😭

---

and that's the whole page, bestie — straight out of the System Manager's Manual, section EFINGERD(8). 🎀 go finger responsibly 🫶🌈