FINGERD(8)

📦
version 0.17 · 2 versions
  • 0.17 · debian bookworm, debian trixie, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking (latest)
  • 0.17 · fedora 43, fedora 44
, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

in.fingerd — the remote user information server, bestie. it's literally the daemon that answers when someone fingers you across the network 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

in.fingerd [-wulf] [-pL path] [-t timeout]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so Fingerd is a simple daemon built on RFC1196, and what it does is give the network an interface to the finger program at basically every network site. the whole point is to hand back a friendly, human-oriented status report — either about the system right now, or about one specific person, in depth. it's giving ✨wholesome networking✨

If the -w option is given, remote users get an extra “Welcome to ...” banner, and that banner also shows some info about the system in.fingerd is running on — like uptime, the operating system name, and the release. 🫶

heads up bestie — some sites consider this a security risk, because it's giving out information that may be useful to crackers. not the vibe. 😭

If the -u option is given, requests of the form “finger @host” get rejected. bye. 🙈

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. periodt. 💀

If the -f option is given, finger forwarding — that's user@host1@host2 — is allowed. useful behind firewalls, but probably not wise for security and resource reasons. pick your battles.

The -p option lets you specify an alternate location for in.fingerd to find the finger program. the -L option is equivalent, iykyk. 🔥

The -t option specifies the time to wait for a request before closing the connection. a value of 0 waits forever (main character energy, honestly). the default is 60 seconds. ⭐

Options to in.fingerd should be specified in /etc/inetd.conf. no cap.

The finger protocol consists mostly of specifying command arguments. the inetd(8) “super-server” runs in.fingerd for TCP requests received on port 79. once connected, in.fingerd reads a single command line terminated by a ⟨CRLF⟩, and that line gets passed to finger(1). it closes its connections as soon as all output is finished. slay, efficient. 💅

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. 🎀

note: 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 derivations are returned. the way it just hands you everything 😭👑

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

💀 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 interpretation. it's giving chaos. not me accidentally breaking my own finger query 🙈

🌸 HISTORY 🌸

The finger daemon appeared in 4.3BSD. vintage icon behavior, fr fr. 👑

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this little legend is from Linux NetKit (0.17), dated August 29, 1996 — yeah, she's an elder but she ATE. go forth and finger responsibly 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from