Saw a couple of mentions of the Unix `finger` protocol/command go by in my feed, and thought I'd relate a personal story about using it, because many people using Unix-derived OSes today never experienced it.
The command `finger <username>` would show you information about a user account. Depending on options you used, how other users configured their accounts, and how the system administrator configured things, it could show you the user's real name field, which terminal they were using, whether that terminal was open to writing from other terminals [1], when they logged in, how long their session had been idle, office location and phone number [2], whether they had unread email and when they last read email, and other things.
This was great for determining if someone was using the system at the same time as you, and e.g. what computer lab they were in.
You could even do this if they were on a different machine: `finger <username>@<hostname>`.
More interestingly, you could get a list of all users logged into a machine, with `finger @<hostname>`.
Yes, this was probably a bad idea from a security point of view. It was a different time.
This frequently led to another command: `talk`.
1/x
[1] You could send another user a message, and it would just pop up on their terminal.
[2] Unix really shows its roots in research and educational settings with this sort of thing.
#Unix #finger #talk #terminal #internet
The command `finger <username>` would show you information about a user account. Depending on options you used, how other users configured their accounts, and how the system administrator configured things, it could show you the user's real name field, which terminal they were using, whether that terminal was open to writing from other terminals [1], when they logged in, how long their session had been idle, office location and phone number [2], whether they had unread email and when they last read email, and other things.
This was great for determining if someone was using the system at the same time as you, and e.g. what computer lab they were in.
You could even do this if they were on a different machine: `finger <username>@<hostname>`.
More interestingly, you could get a list of all users logged into a machine, with `finger @<hostname>`.
Yes, this was probably a bad idea from a security point of view. It was a different time.
This frequently led to another command: `talk`.
1/x
[1] You could send another user a message, and it would just pop up on their terminal.
[2] Unix really shows its roots in research and educational settings with this sort of thing.
#Unix #finger #talk #terminal #internet
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