Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rphroy!caen!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: Where does mail info come from in finger ? Message-ID: <1991Jun14.190321.25764@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 14 Jun 91 19:03:21 GMT References: <1669@fs1.ee.ubc.ca> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 24 In article <1669@fs1.ee.ubc.ca> tibors@ee.ubc.ca (tibor szikszai) writes: > >I looked at the source for finger, but I couldn't find anything that >seems to be checking any files for whether the person being fingered >has mail or not. So I am curious about how things like "No unread >mail." or "New mail received ... Unread since ..." or "Mail last read ..." Not all fingers are created equal. Some are more willing to intrude on privacy than others. >get printed. Does anybody know? Is another daemon doing this job? daemon ? Do you mean you looked at fingerd sources? Usually the fingerd daemon merely invokes the local finger command and pipes the output back to the network connection. On a Sun, the output of 'strings /usr/ucb/finger' contains '/usr/ucb/mail'. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940