FINGERD(8)              FreeBSD System Manager's Manual             FINGERD(8)

NAME
     fingerd - remote user information server

SYNOPSIS
     fingerd [-d] [-k] [-s] [-l] [-p filename]

DESCRIPTION
     The fingerd utility uses a simple protocol based on RFC1196 that provides
     an interface to finger(1) at several network sites.  It is supposed to
     return a friendly, human-oriented status report on either the system at
     the moment or a particular person in depth.  There is no required format
     and the protocol consists mostly of specifying a single "command line",
     thus, fingerd can also be used to implement other protocols in
     conjunction with the -p flag.

     The fingerd utility is started by inetd(8), which listens for TCP
     requests at port 79.  Once connected it reads a single command line
     terminated by a <CRLF> which is passed to finger(1).  The fingerd utility
     closes its connections as soon as the output is finished.

     If the line is null (i.e., just a <CRLF> is sent) then finger(1) returns
     a "default" report that lists all people logged into the system at that
     moment.

     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 following options may be passed to fingerd as server program
     arguments in /etc/inetd.conf:

     -d      Enable debugging mode.  In debugging mode, fingerd will not
             attempt any network-related operations on stdin, and it will
             print the full finger command line to stderr before executing it.

     -k      Suppress login information.  See the description of the -k option
             in finger(1) for details.

     -s      Enable secure mode.  Queries without a user name are rejected and
             forwarding of queries to other remote hosts is denied.

     -l      Enable logging.  The name of the host originating the query is
             reported via syslog(3) at LOG_NOTICE priority.

     -p      Use an alternate program as the local information provider.  The
             default local program executed by fingerd is finger(1).  By
             specifying a customized local server, this option allows a system
             manager to have more control over what information is provided to
             remote sites.  If -p is specified, fingerd will also set the
             environment variable FINGERD_REMOTE_HOST to the name of the host
             making the request.

SEE ALSO
     finger(1), inetd(8)

HISTORY
     The fingerd utility appeared in 4.3BSD.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6        November 19, 2014       FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6