[6413] in Athena Bugs
vax 7.1H: finger/chfn
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Wed Nov 14 22:33:50 1990
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 22:33:34 -0500
From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" <jik@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
To: acevedo@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: bugs[6411]
This is not a bug in what you get when you type "finger username".
As I said when we discussed this over zephyr, the passwd entry you get
when you type "hesinfo username passwd" is formatted in the standard
/etc/passwd file format, so that standard finger programs can
understand the information in it. Since the standard passwd file
format doesn't have space for Home address, MIT department or MIT
year, it is not included in the passwd hesiod entry for each user, so
"finger username" cannot display it.
On the other hand, as I also said over zephyr, the finger daemon
running on athena.mit.edu already uses a data file which is formatted
in a non-standard way, so it would not be difficult to modify both the
data file format and the program itself to display the additional
information, and you will then be able to access it by typing "finger
name@athena".
The finger daemon running on athena.mit.edu is not part of the
standard release, so "bugs" does not do bug-tracking on it. I have
therefore forwarded your request to the postmasters, who will deal
with it or not, as they choose.
Frankly, I don't see much point to it, since all of that information
is currently available in the mit.edu database.
Jonathan Kamens
Project Athena Quality Assurance
