RFC 742

Okay bestie, so this is RFC 742: NAME/FINGER 🎀 It's by K. Harrenstien from SRI-KL, dated 30 December 1977 🧚 (it also got NIC number 42758 ✨). The doc doesn't list a category, and it doesn't say it obsoletes or updates anything, so there's nothing else to track up here 💅

Introduction ✨

okay so this note describes the Name/Finger protocol 🦋 It's a simple protocol that gives you an interface to the Name and Finger programs at a bunch of network sites. Those programs give you a friendly, human-readable status report, either on the whole system right now or on one specific person in depth 💖 Right now only the SAIL (SU-AI), SRI (SRI-(KA/KL)), and ITS (MIT-(AI/ML/MC/DMS)) sites support it. But other systems have similar programs that could easily be turned into servers 🌈 There's no required format, and the whole protocol is mostly just one "command line" 💅

To use via the network

so to connect 🫶 you open an ICP to socket 117 (octal, 79. decimal) and set up two 8-bit connections 🌸

send a single "command line" ending with <CRLF> ✨

then you get back info that changes based on your command line and which system you're talking to 💜 the server closes both connections the second that output is done 🔥

The command line

systems can read this line differently, but the basic idea is super simple 💖 if the line is null (so you just send a <CRLF>), the server should return a "default" report listing everyone using the system at that moment 🍓 if you send a user name instead (like FOO<CRLF>), the response should only be about that one user, whether they're logged in or not 🦋

both ITS and SAIL sites let you put several names on the line, separated by commas ✨ some servers can get a bit more elaborate though 🧚 for example, if "/W" (called the "Whois switch") also shows up on the line sent to an ITS server, you get much fuller descriptions back 👑 the complete docs are always in the files .INFO.;NAME ORDER on MIT-AI, FINGER.LES[UP,DOC] on SU-AI, and <DOCUMENTATION>FINGER.DOC on SRI-KL 💅 you can grab them with FTP, freely accessible, except SRI-KL, where TOPS-20 needs the "anonymous" login convention 🙈

names in the command line should obviously include "user names" or "login names" as the system defines them 💖 but it's also reasonable to understand last names or even full names 🌸 if a name is ambiguous, you should return all the possible matches somehow 😭 SAIL just lists the possible names and nothing more, but an ITS server gives you the full standard info for each possibility 🫶

Response to null command line - "default" listing

this is basically a request for a list of everyone online 💅 it's giving TOPS-10 or TENEX "systat" energy ✨ to fulfill the main point of the Name/Finger programs, the list should include at least each user's full name and the physical locations of their terminals, as far as those can be figured out 🎀 adding the job name and idle time (the number of minutes since last typein, or since last job activity) is also reasonable and useful 🦋 the appendix has examples showing how this info can be formatted 🌈

Response to non-null command line - "name" listing

for in-depth status on a specific user, there are two main cases 💜 if the user is logged in, you get a line or two in the same format as the "default" listing, just showing that user 🧚 if they're not logged in, things get more interesting 👑 the expected thing is to give their full name and the time of their last logout 💖 there's also a "plan" feature, where a user can leave a short message that gets included in the response to these requests 🍓 this is easy to implement by, for example, having the program look for a specially named text file in the user's directory or some common area 🌸 check the examples for typical "plans" 💅

Implementation miscellany

anyone who wants to build one of these servers is encouraged to contact the NAME maintainers by sending a message to BUG-NAME @ MIT-AI 🫶 besides giving advice and help, they keep a list of all sites with these servers there 🦋 it's also suggested that existing programs doing similar stuff locally (so not as net servers) get extended so you can specify other sites, or names at other sites ✨ for example, on ITS systems you can type :NAME<cr> for a local default listing, :NAME @SAIL<cr> for SAIL's default listing, or :NAME Foo@MC<cr> to ask MIT-MC about Foo's status, etc. 🌈

⚠️ heads up: connecting straight to the server from a TIP or an equally narrow-minded TELNET-protocol user program can cause meaningless attempts at option negotiation to get sent to the server 😭 that can mess up the command line interpretation, unless the server knows enough to filter out IAC's and maybe even respond negatively (IAC WON'T) to all the option commands it gets 💀 this is a convenience but it is not at all required, since normally the user side is just an extended NAME/FINGER type program 🙈

And finally a little background

the FINGER program at SAIL, written by Les Earnest, inspired the NAME program on ITS 🧚 Earl Killian at MIT and Brian Harvey at SAIL jointly implemented the protocol we just went over 👑 and Greg Hinchliffe recently brought up a similar server for SRI-KA and SRI-KL 🔥 iconic teamwork 💜

EXAMPLES 🌈

Note: some lines of the actual output can go over 80 chars 🙈 how those lines get handled depends on the user program, but in these examples, lines were cut to 72 chars for clarity ✨

Three examples with a null command line

Site: MIT-AI
Command line:

-User-   --Full name--          Jobnam Idle TTY -Console location-
XGP    O Xerox Graphics Printer XGPSPL      T24 Datapoint Near XGP (9TH)
FFM    U Steven J. Kudlak       HACTRN      T41 Net site CMU-10A
KLH    + Ken Harrenstien        F           T42 Net site SRI-KL
___013 -  Not Logged In         HACTRN 1:26.T43 DSSR UNIX x3-6048 (MIT-*
CWH    U Carl W. Hoffman        E         4.T50 919 Very Small Data Bas*
CARL   A Carl Hewitt            HACTRN 5:03.T52 813 Hewitt x5873
APD    M Alexander Doohovskoy   XGP    1:52.T54 912 9th Floor Lounge x6*
JJK    T James Koschella        E           T55 824 Hollerbach, Levin, *
KEN    L Kenneth Kahn           E           T56 925 Moon (Tycho under) *

Site: SAIL
Command line:

     Person          Job Jobnam Idle    Terminal
DAN Dan Sleator       46 MACLSP      DM-3         150/1200 modem 415 49*
DEK Don Knuth          3 E        3. tv-55  205   Library
                      20 PI       2  TV-55  205   Library
ES  Gene Salamin      44 SD MC       TV-40  223a  Farmwald
JJ  Jerrold Ginsparg  11 TELNET      DM-0         150/1200 modem 415 49*
JMC John McCarthy      1 FINGER    . detached
                      12 E        2. IML-15       McCarthy's house
KRD Randy Davis       42 AID      7  TV-52  203   Allen
LES Les Earnest       23 TEMPS    2. DM-1         150/1200 modem 415 49*
ME  Martin Frost      17 E        3  tv-46  220   Filman, Frost
                      31 E           TV-46  220   Filman, Frost
PAM Paul Martin        9 E           TV-106 251C  King, Levy, Martin
ROD Rod Brooks        37 MACLSP   3  TV-117 250C
RWG Bill Gosper       30 SD MC       TV-34  230e  Robinson
                                     TV-67  213   Kant, McCune, Steinbe*
RWW Richard Weyhrauch 39 E           TV-42  214   Weyhrauch
SYS system files       6 FINGER      PTY122       job 5 Arpanet site AI*

Site: SRI-KL
Command line:

Thursday, 15-Dec-77 01:21:24-PST  System up  3 Days, 22:20:52  28 Jobs
Drum   0%  Load avs 0.26 0.23 0.31   14 Act, 10 Idle,  8 Det

User    Personal Name     Job Subsys 15m%  TTY  Room   Console Location
BLEAN   Bob Blean          37 EXEC    0.0   41  K2007  Blean
KLH     Ken Harrenstien    83 TELNET  1.6   12  J2023  Spaceport
KREMERS Jan Kremers        48 TECO    0.0  121  Dialup 326-7005 (300 Ba*
MAINT   Digital Equipment  54 SNDMSG  0.5   43  K2035  Melling
MCCLURG Jim McClurg        40 EXEC    0.0   26  PKT
MMCM    Michael McMahon    31 EXEC    1.5  122  Dialup 326-7006 (300 Ba*
MOORE   J Moore            52 TV      0.2  124  Dialup 326-7008 (300 Ba*
PATTIS  Richard Pattis     19 LISP    0.8   11  ARC
PETERSO Norman Peterson    33 EXEC   25:12 234         (RAND-TIP)
STONE   Duane Stone        34 TELNET 3:51  240         (RADC-TIP)
                           27 EXEC   7:11  232         (SRI-KL)
TORRES  Israel Torres      64 BSYS    0.0   76  K2079  TI by tape drives
                           68 EXEC   1:15  104  K2029  Operators' Office

Examples with names specified

Site: MIT-AI
Command line: klh

KLH    + Ken Harrenstien        Last logout 10/16/77 13:02:11  No plan.

Site: MIT-MC
Command line: cbf

CBF    M Charles Frankston      Not logged in.  Plan:
  I'll be visiting another planet til about December 15.  If anyone
  wants to get a hold of me transmit on some fundamental wavelength
  (like the radius of the hydrogen atom).

Site: MIT-MC
Command line: smith

BRIAN  A Brian C. Smith         Last logout 11/24/77 08:02:24  No plan.
DBS    T David B. Smith         Last logout 12/03/77 11:24:01  No plan.
BPS    T Byron Paul Smith       Not logged in.  No plan.
GRS    U Gary R. Smith          Last logout 12/12/77 18:43:19  No plan.
JOS    S Julius Orion III Smith Last logout 11/29/77 06:18:18  No plan.
$PETE  M PETER G. SMITH,        Not logged in.  No plan.
IAN    L Ian C. Smith           Not logged in.  No plan.
AJS    D Arnold J. Smith        Last logout 12/09/77 14:31:11  No plan.

Site: SU-AI
Command line: smith

"SMITH" is ambiguous:
RS  Bob Smith
DAV Dave Smith
JOS Julius Smith
LCS Leland Smith

Site: SU-AI
Command line: jbr

     Person          Job Jobnam Idle Line  Room   Location
JBR Jeff Rubin        16 COPY    27. TV-43  222   Rubin
                                     TV-104 233   hand-eye table

Site: SU-AI
Command line: bh

     Person               Last logout
BH  Brian Harvey      22:49 on 14 Dec 1977.  Plan:
    ^O08-Oct-77  2156   BH  ^Y12257 (1-Jul-78)
Weekdays during the day I'm usually unreachable; I'm either at S.F.
State or at Benjamin Franklin JHS in San Francisco, but neither place
is recommended for leaving messages.  Evenings and weekends I'm
generally home (55) 751-1762 unless I'm at SAIL.  I log in daily from
home.

Site: SRI-KL
Command line: greg

GREG (Greg Hinchliffe) is on the system:

Job Subsys  # Siz  Runtime    1m%  15m%  TTY  Room   Console Location
62  EXEC    1   0  0:00:10.6        0.8  235         (SUMEX-AIM)

Last login: Mon 12-Dec-77, 15:05, from SUMEX-AIM (Host #56.)
GREG has no new mail, last read on Mon 12-Dec-77 15:10
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