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- Finger Service for Windows NT
- Version 1.2
-
- Copyright 1994, Charles Calkins
-
- Overview:
-
- Windows NT 3.1 provides a finger client, but does not provide a finger
- service. After getting my machine networked, I realized this deficiency and
- hacked together a finger service. No warranties expressed or implied, use at
- your own risk and all that, but it runs properly on test systems available to
- me. If you use it, please send me e-mail and let me know what you think, what
- you would like to see improve, etc.
- Version 1.1 and above now includes a special user "quote" - see below
- for details
-
-
- What's New:
-
- 1.2 Extended quote attribution
- 1.1 Added quote behavior
- 1.0 Initial release
-
- Installation:
-
- 1> Log into NT with an account with Administrator privilege
- 2> Place fingerd.exe in a directory of your choice. My tests have shown it
- to execute from anywhere, but one person reported it only successfully
- worked from \winnt\system32.
- 3> type
-
- fingerd install start
-
- If all went well, it should print a copyright notice and two lines of text,
- the first stating that it has installed itself, and the second reporting that
- the service has been started. That's it. To test it, type:
-
- finger @yourmachine
-
- where yourmachine is the hostname of your machine.
-
-
- Other command line options:
-
- Several command line options are supported, and nonconflicting options
- (like install and start) can be included on the same command line.
-
- install Install the service
- remove Remove the service
- start Start the service
- stop Stop the service
- int Run interactively
-
- Interactive mode runs the service as a regular process and not a service
- (and thus does not require administrator privilege). Its useful for testing,
- but not much else. One could put it in one's startup group like this, however,
- though that configuration has not been tested. If it is running as a user and
- not as a service, however, some processes will not be able to be examined for
- user info, and thus not all users with active processes will be reported.
-
-
- Quote server:
-
- fingerd can now act as a quote server by fingering the special user
- "quote". If a file "quotes.dat" is present in the same directory as
- fingerd.exe when it starts, finger quote@machine will retrieve a quote from
- that file. Quotes.dat has the following format:
-
- ~Attribution for quotes #1 and #2
- Quote #1
- ~
- Quote #2
- ~Attribution for quote #3
- Quote #3's first line
- Quote #3's second line
- ~
-
- When "quote" is fingered, a random quote is chosen and returned to the
- user, with "From <attribution>" following. In the above example, if quote #1
- or #2 is chosen, the first attribution is returned. If quote #3 is chosen,
- the second attribution is returned. Note the placing of the ~'s. The file
- must begin and end with ~'s, and quotes must be separated by ~'s. If an
- attribution is present, it must not have a space between the associated ~ and
- the start of the attribution. Quotes may be multiple lines - anything between
- the ~'s for that quote entry is displayed.
-
- For instance, I use this mechanism on Trixie (trixie.cec.wustl.edu) to
- return quotes from Japanese Anime movies I have seen. I use the attribution
- area for the episode, and then give a number of quotes from that episode.
- Note that this could be a mechanism for general information, or whatever
- is desired if I receive feedback (e.g. I could add a fingerable "help", for
- instance). Let me know if this would be useful - for me, "quote" is
- sufficient.
-
-
- Administrative info:
-
- Standard legalese applies. I take no responsibility for any ill effects
- this application may have on your system, and provide no warranties to its
- operation. Use at your own risk. It runs fine on systems available to me,
- but if your hard disk suddenly explodes, don't say I didn't warn you. It has
- also been tested with version 1.0 of the Ataman telnet and rlogin services
- and will report processes by these users as well.
- I'm releasing this as freeware, as it was more an exercise in Windows NT
- programming than anything else. The finger protocol was inspired by
- Lee Murach's TXTSRV (c. 1993), and the mechanism for retrieving user info
- gleaned from the Win32 SDK.
-
- Charles Calkins
- calkinsc@swarm.wustl.edu or
- calkinsc@tardis.union.edu or
- crc2@cec.wustl.edu or
- calkinsc@aol.com
-
-
-
-