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From: mdb@ESD.3Com.COM (Mark D. Baushke)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Finding login ids
Message-ID: <MDB.90Feb11232038@kosciusko.ESD.3Com.COM>
Date: 12 Feb 90 07:20:38 GMT
References: <48864496.19c13@locust.engin.umich.edu> <7435@yunexus.UUCP>
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In-reply-to: davecb@yunexus.UUCP's message of 9 Feb 90 19:26:14 GMT

On 9 Feb 90 19:26:14 GMT, davecb@yunexus.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) said:

David> leviatan@caen.engin.umich.edu (David Disser) writes:
>Is there any standard convention for finding a specific person's id if you
>know the address?  I finally dug up the right addresses for a few friends
>at various universities, but I still have to find what ids to mail to.
>Thanks in advance.

David> Yup:
David> 	(echo "$person"; echo) | telnet $machine 79"

Why use an unreadable '79' when 'finger' works just as well?

	(echo "$person"; echo) | telnet $machine finger"

Of course, on my machine I typically use 'finger person@machine.domain'
to get this same information. However, this is not much use unless the
machine is reachable (both parties connected via the Internet).

David> It's in "man 8 finger"

My man page on finger (SunOS) has this to say:

     If a username argument contains an at-sign, ``@'', then a
     connection is attempted to the machine named after the at-sign,
     and the remote finger daemon is queried.
-- 
Mark D. Baushke
mdb@ESD.3Com.COM