A Little Technology Shoppe LLC

The UNIX finger service can be used to provide a form of user directory service. After you have installed the finger service, remote users will have the ability to query user profiles on your Virtual Server. User profiles include information such as full name, login name, home directory, as well as the contents of the ".plan", ".project", or ".forward" files. The ".plan"".project", and ".forward" files must be located in each of your users home directories (if they exist).

Installing the Finger Service
To install the finger service, simply connect to your Virtual Server using Telnet or SSH and type the following commands:

1. cd and hit return     (this will put you in your home directory)
2. then type tar -xvf /usr/local/contrib/finger.tar

After you have installed finger on your Virtual Server you can perform queries using any finger client. An example of a CGI client is included in the next section of this document.

Using a Finger Client
In order for remote users to query the finger service on your Virtual Server, they will need to use a finger client. A finger client is included with the standard distribution of most UNIX operating systems. Finger clients for the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems are available by searching the major shareware archives.

You can also write a simple CGI script to interface with a finger client. This would allow any remote user that has access to a web browser to perform finger queries.

Installation instructions for the finger CGI script can be found in the CGI Library.