[NTLUG:Discuss] finger

[Matt Midboe]

TJ Bell wrote:
> plan."  The ONLY way it will display my .plan file is if I'm logged in
> as myself AND I just do `finger tj`.
> 
> Any ideas??  The .plan permissions are 644 so other can read it but of
> course my home directory has the perms cut off...but that shouldn't
> matter to finger should it??

If your directory permissions don't allow at least x then the finger program
won't be able to read the .plan file. Finger works for you because your uid is
running the program and can read your directory. If you want other people to be
able to read your .plan file you can chmod 711 on your home dir which will allow
them to open files in your directory but not list anything. Currently the nobody
user or whomever else runs the finger program won't be able to open .plan
because the home dir permissions only allow you.

If you want to be able to test things out without logging out and in as a
different user try this. Do finger tj at localhost so it doesn't try to open your
.plan as you. It will run the finger program as whatever user inetd says to run
it as.

Matt
matt at csbgroup.org