Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ra!Ra.MsState.Edu!fwp1 From: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: a .plan question.. Message-ID: Date: 29 Jan 91 03:31:06 GMT References: <1991Jan28.233821.24491@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> Sender: usenet@ra.MsState.Edu Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: jester.cc.msstate.edu In-reply-to: jkonrath@silver.ucs.indiana.edu's message of 28 Jan 91 23:38:21 GMT : On 28 Jan 91 23:38:21 GMT, jkonrath@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jon) said: jkonrath> dumb question from a non-wizard: jkonrath> anyone know a way to run a program from a .plan? it needs to be run at the jkonrath> time of the finger, and run by the fingeree. jkonrath> the program is to see who is doing the fingering, then put their name in jkonrath> a log. any way to do this in this method? i saw it done a while back, but jkonrath> it couldve been some method of running a background program to constantly It is certainly possible. The trick is to make .plan a type of special file called a FIFO (First In First Out). Your process then waits for someone to read from .plan and then writes to it. This is actually very easy to do. I wrote a quick hack to do it the last time this thread came around. Write to me if you want a copy. There are a few gotchas and limitations to be aware of: 1) The only real way to find out who is fingering you is to lok for the process that is doing it. That means that this will only work for local fingerers. The finger protocol doesn't tell you who is fingering you from a remote host. 2) If the finger server isn't running then when the process opens the .plan file it just hangs. This can lead to a few seized up fingerd processes. 3) If your home directory is shared among several machines things will lock up if anyone fingers you on any machine but the one the server is running on. This is really a special case of item 2. Regards, FWP -- -- Frank Peters Internet: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu Bitnet: FWP1@MsState Phone: (601)325-2942 FAX: (601)325-8921