Finger protocol

Finger displays information about a particular user on a local system or on a remote computer, or is used to determine the availability of a particular host in IP networks.

The displayed information includes:

  • Username ( Login Name )
  • Full name of user
  • Logon time
  • Length of time that the user is already active or inactive
  • Terminal has logged from which the user is

Finger can also be used to transmit other information. For this purpose, a user in his home directory a file called '. Schedule ' or '. Project' Creating whose content is delivered in the finger access. This was for example used for years to keep users on the currently latest Linux kernel version to date.

To retrieve information about a user on a remote host, the host must support the finger service, which is the case rather rare today. In general, this then TCP port 79 is on the command line the following command is executed:

Finger username @ hostname

History

The Finger protocol is one of the older protocols from the Internet protocol family. It is based on the original NAME / FINGER Protocol ( RFC 742), the name the connection to the programs and implemented finger and was defined in 1977 as an RFC. The finger program was originally developed in 1971 by Les Earnest. Earnest developed the program to give users the opportunity to learn information from other users on the network. Previously, the only way to get this information, the program who, the IDs and terminal numbers of logged in users was indicated. The current version of RFC 1288 protocol definition was established in 1991.

Finger is now similar to other protocols similar functionality seen as glaring security hole because so outsiders can obtain detailed information about the identity of users and their habits. For the computer security in terms of finger see also social engineering.

Thimbl

Thimbl is a definition for JSON - structured data that can be stored as finger information for a user. In this way a kind of micro-blogging platform is placed on finger, which could be comparable with Twitter or diaspora, but it relies on well-known protocols and standards, providing higher reliability and independence of individual providers.

For Thimbl there are already several projects that attempt to create end-user -capable clients.

Host (network) Network service who (Unix) Social engineering (security) Ident protocol
334891
de