Very Computer

I have disabled finger on some of our unix systems because it was (a)
unnecessary and (b) felt to be a potential nuisance.

For a service I am providing I would rather like to be able to use finger to
allow users a "regular" way of querying the service status remotely.

What I am looking for is either a "safe" fingerd (preferably one which would
allow root to specify which accounts could be fingered), or a better way to do
what I want.

Any takers?

Regards,

Matt.
----
Matt Mower - Infonaut - Information Services Team
The University of North London. Tower Building, M19d
Homepage URL = http://www.unl.ac.uk/~mat/

ftp://hplyot.obspm.fr/net/sfingerd-1.8.tar.gz

Very easy to install and use.

--
% VASSELLERIE Pierre                                                         *
* DASGAL, Observatoire de Paris, 5,Place J. Janssen, F-92195 Meudon Cedex    %
% Tel: (33 1) 45 07 78 49  - Fax: (33 1) 45 07 78 78                         *

ftp://hplyot.obspm.fr/net/sfingerd-1.8.tar.gz

Very easy to install and use.

--
% VASSELLERIE Pierre                                                         *
* DASGAL, Observatoire de Paris, 5,Place J. Janssen, F-92195 Meudon Cedex    %
% Tel: (33 1) 45 07 78 49  - Fax: (33 1) 45 07 78 78                         *

: [soapbox mode on]
: In all honesty, why bother?  It's really disgusting the way the Internet
: Worm had every (so-called) admin and his mother running around disabling
: in.fingerd.  The obscure bug that was once in fingerd's code is long gone
: on about every implementation in existance and an attack on fingerd is
: the least of your worries as an administrator.  finger was once a
: valuable resource as far as finding ppl and passing information, but
: just like the cholesterol scare, someone cries to mommy, and the wieners
: follow suit.
: [soapbox mode off]

There are valid reasons other than the Internet Worm to replace a vendor's
finger with something more configurable.

Things such as:
        improved logging
        "bug" fixes (getting rid of finger-based denial of service and

        elimination of extra, non-relevant information, mostly of mild
                interest to anyone but crackers (shell, home directory,
                last login time, host last logged in from)

Plus, for those who have the time and energy to review it, or need to
change it, source code.
        -Kurt