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 # $Id: README,v 1.25 1999/04/12 05:25:57 ap1 Exp ap1 $ #
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egrep-finger, an `extended' finger client and daemon.  See the file
INSTALL for information on how to configure, build and install this
package.

Copyright (C) 1998, 1999  Andrew J. Pitman

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

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Explanation:

egrep-finger merges the functionality of egrep into the finger we all know
and love.  So you can use extended regular expressions (with wildcards and the
like) to search for users.  It also can be used to easily look up multiple
users at once.

egrep-finger can be called as:  efinger 'joe|tom@remotehost' for instance, and
will return all matches for users joe and tom on the remote system (also
depends on the behavior of the remote server).  It is also a fully
featured local user lookup program, with output configurable at compile-time.

When called by root (such as when in.efingerd calls efinger(1)), the program
drops root priveleges for all operations except reading and outputting the
contents of user's .plan and .project files.  This means that if the user's
home is not searchable, the .plan and/or .project file(s) will still be visible
to remote users, but not to non-root local users.  If this bothers you, you
can make efinger setuid root, but why would you?  Users can always just place
@localhost after the user's name to go through the daemon.

As previously mentioned, this program has the capablility to search for a user
or users using extended regular expressions, much like egrep's format.  This
functionality works on the localhost, as well as remote hosts running
egrep-finger.  You'll be able to tell if a remote host is running egrep-finger
by the banner it prints when you connect.

If you have any questions, comments, or bug reports, please don't hesitate to
contact me at the following address:

                Andrew J. Pitman
                ap1@torch.rowan.edu

Or, you can go to the egrep-finger homepage:

                http://torch.rowan.edu/egrepfinger/

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