Since I set up my Ubuntu servers and desktops at home I have wanted to be able to remotely finger the different computers on my network. By default, a remote finger request will look like this:
zac@dakara:~$ finger @athos [athos.lund] finger: connect: Connection refused
The solution is to install the required packages:
apt-get install inetutils-inetd fingerd
Then start the Internet super server:
/etc/init.d/inetutils-inetd start
According to the package details: “Inetd is the daemon that listens on various TCP and UDP ports and spawns programs that can’t or won’t do it for themselves.”
Now a remote finger request will look like:
zac@dakara:~$ finger @athos [athos.lund] Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone zac Zachary Lund pts/2 May 4 20:12 (dakara.lund)
The contents of the file /etc/inetd.conf show what is necessary for finger:
finger stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/in.fingerd
It simply takes an incoming finger request and spawns the appropriate process.