Finger is a command which provides information on a user on another system. The information may be provided by the user’s employer (in the case of an institutional database such as at Stanford University) or it may be provided by the user, via editing the .plan file in the home directory. There is currently no “finger server” operating over email, so that you cannot execute finger from a store and forward network. One form of finger tells you basic information about an individual, assuming you know the machine to query. The command is of the form:
finger <search string>@host.domain
The <search string> can be a fragment of a name, but should not contain spaces. Since many UNIX sites limit user-ids to 8 characters, your search string should probably correspond to this limit.
Example
In this example I search for a user whose name or user-id includes the string “bernard” on the system world.std.com. This might be useful if the person’s first name is fairly unique, and I know their system name, but not their user id.
% finger bernard@world.std.com
[world.std.com]
world -- The World -- Public Access UNIX -- SUN 4/280 SUNOS 4.0.3
2:22am up 22:09, 14 users, load average: 2.04, 2.22, 2.05
aboba . Bernard D Aboba Login Fri 27-Mar-92 11:18PM from netcom.com
ley.
[1290,1290] </users/aboba>; Group: aboba
Groups: aboba
aboba has new mail as of Sat 28-Mar-92 12:58AM
Plan: (last modified Mon 9-Mar-92 12:10AM)
Plan: A course of action, measurement, and correction.
Currently, I’m recuperating from the first edition of
Bulletin Boards and Beyond.
dirsolns . Bernard Platoniz Login Mon 23-Mar-92 7:15PM from dialup 739-WR
LD{tty00}
[1046,1046] </users/Platoniz >; Group: Platoniz
Groups: Platoniz
Platoniz has new mail as of Tue 24-Mar-92 8:35AM
last read Tue 24-Mar-92 8:35AM
Institutional finger
The problem with standard finger is that you need to know on which machine the person has an account. In order to make searching easier, certain universities support an “institutional finger” command of the form:
finger <search string>@<institution>.edu
When this command is executed, the institutional database is queried, returning the matching machine and user-ids.
Example
% finger akbar@mit.edu
[mit.edu]
Student data loaded as of Mar 4, Staff data loaded as of Mar 3.
Notify the Registrar or Personnel as appropriate to change your information.
This service is maintained by Distributed Computing and Network Services.
Send Comments regarding this service to mitdir@mit.edu.
Use finger help@mit.edu for some instructions.
There was 1 match to your request.
Complete information will be shown only when one individual matches
your query. Resubmit your query with more information.
For example, use both firstname and lastname or use the alias field.
csus.edu California State University at Sacramento
colorado.edu University of Colorado
csus.edu California State University at Sacramento
dartmouth.edu Dartmouth University
iastate.edu Iowa State University
mit.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology
princeton.edu Princeton University
sonoma.edu Sonoma State University
sunysb.edu State University of New York at Stonybrook
ucsd.edu University of California at San Diego
uiuc.edu University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
umich.edu University of Michigan
utdallas.edu University of Texas at Dallas
Whois
The Internet version of whois looks up users in a database maintained at nic.ddn.mil. Information on how to get your email address included in the database is included in Chapter 18 – Knowbot.
The simplest form of the command is:
whois <search string>
Example
A straightforward use of whois is when you have someone with a unique last name, such as mine:
% whois aboba
Aboba, Bernard (BA8) aboba@WORLD.STD.COM
1442A Walnut St. #62
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 549-2684
Record last updated on 07-Jan-92.
However, if you are searching for a common name, life can become more complicated:
% whois bmug
BMUG, ALBERT (AB20) 510-849-2684
BMUG, BERNARD N., JR. (BBS1) 510-849-2684
BMUG, KEVIN (KB20) AKBAR@GANDWANA.ORG 510-849-2684
BMUG, MICHAEL (MB17) JEFF@MOOSEHAIR.ORG 510-849-2684
In this case, you need to execute another whois command using the symbol in parenthesis to get the information:
% whois AB20
BMUG, ALBERT (AB20) [No mailbox]
BMUG, Inc.
1442A Walnut St. #62
Berkeley, CA 94709
510-549-2684
Record last updated on 18-Dec-91.
Institutional searching via whois
Several educational institutions such as Stanford University now maintain an extensive whois database. If you know that the person you are looking for is at a given institution, you can query the institutional database via the command:
whois -h <institution>.edu <search string>
Example
% whois -h stanford.edu Gorbachev
Stanford University Whois Service
"whois help" for general info | Problems to "whois-problem@networking"
"whois update" for entry update info | Comments to "help@networking"
Gorbachev, Michael (gorby) (510) 849-2684
Hoover Institution, Fellow
(returned 1 entry)
Institutions implementing global whois
Some of the institutions implementing global whois are:
Domain name Institution
csus.edu California State University at Sacramento
mit.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ohio-state.edu Ohio State University
sonoma.edu Sonoma State University
sunysb.edu State University of New York at Stonybrook
ucsd.edu University of California at San Diego
virginia.edu University of Virginia
(use whois.virginia.edu)
ListServ whois
While the Internet whois is only useful to those with Internet accounts, there is also a ListServ version which can be accessed via email. However this command is somewhat different. The ListServ version of whois can only be used to find someone whom you know is subscribing to a particular ListServ.
USENET address database
The machine pit-manager.mit.edu maintains a database of addresses of USENET posters. This database contains the names and addresses of thousands of people, many of whom are not listed in other directories. If you think that your intended recipient has been active on USENET, then you might wish to query this database.
To use this database, send mail to
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu, with a subject or text of the message being:
send usenet-addresses/<name>
Example
% mail mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
Subject: send usenet-addresses/aboba
EOT
Null message body; hope that's ok
The response to the request looked like this:
From daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU Sat Mar 28 01:05:30 1992
Received: by world.std.com (5.57/1.33.2)
id AA03598; Sat, 28 Mar 92 01:05:28 -0800
Received: by pit-manager.MIT.EDU (5.61/2.1JIK)
id <AA22838@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>; Sat, 28 Mar 92 04:05:23 -0500
Subject: Reply from mserv re: send usenet-addresses/aboba
Reply-To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
X-Problems-To: postmaster@pit-manager.mit.edu
Precedence: bulk
To: aboba@world.std.com
Status: R
aboba@world.std.com (Bernard D Aboba) (Mar 22 92)
For more information
An updated information file on finding email addresses is maintained by Mark Kantrowitz, mkant@GLINDA.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU, and is posted periodically to the USENET groups soc.college and soc.net-people. It is also available via anonymous ftp from a.gp.cs.cmu.edu in directory /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mkant/Public/college-email.txt. You will need to cd to this directory directly to get it though, since intermediate directories are protected.
