[3283] in SIPB bug reports
Re: bfinger glitch
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (raeburn@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Mon Nov 9 15:16:02 1992
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 15:15:36 EST
From: raeburn@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: ninadm@Athena.MIT.EDU
Cc: bug-sipb@Athena.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <9211091836.AA09745@hum-myth-2.MIT.EDU> (ninadm@Athena.MIT.EDU)
From: ninadm@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 13:36:23 EST
Hello. I was just looking at OLC for some advice, and it said that I
should write you if I was having trouble with bwrite & bfinger.
Well, I am. A friend at an Italian university and I have been trying
to communicate interactively, so far without success. I thought I'd
play with bwrite; trouble is, when I issue the bfinger or bwrite
command, all I get back is
bfinger: Command not found.
This means you probably didn't use the "add sipb" command, which is
how you make the bfinger command available. Either put it into your
dotfiles, or run it from the xterm window where you're going to use
the bfinger command.
To be brutally honest, I'm not 100% sure he's really at a BITNET site;
his host is UNIV.TRIESTE.IT, and he says it's Bitnet but I'm not
convinced!
I don't know if they've got a BITNET site there, but they do appear to
be connected to the Internet. However, there is no Internet host
"univ.trieste.it"; there's a domain by that name, which contains 25 or
30 machines. (It's sort of like how our "mit.edu" doesn't tell anyone
which workstation you're logged in to. But you can use "mit.edu" for
addressing email.)
Ask him if there's a way you can find out which machine there he's
logged in to at a given time; if there is, you may be able to use the
"talk" command. (Use "man talk" for more info on using it. There's
also talk.old, which you might have to use instead; try both and see
what works.)
There's also a hack that's been set up (i.e., it's not "supported",
if it gets broken sometime it may not be fixed in a hurry, and there's
no one to complain to) where your friend could say
finger zlocate.ninadm@beeblebrox.mit.edu
to see if you're logged on, and which workstation to look for you on.
Then he could use "talk" to reach you.
Good luck!
Ken
