this web 2.0 version of the Unix finger command will allow people and programs to query individuals' profiles over the web—the main aim is to design and implement a system of extensible profile schemas, so that independently developed schemas can be combined.

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2007-03-15

Let D be a set of datatypes, with, for each d ∈ D, a set of possible datavalues x:d. Let L be a set of labels. We consider finite labelled trees t:T with labelled, typed values x:d as leaves. Our trees have nodes of two flavours: ordered and unordered, and are subject to the restriction that the labels of the children of an unordered node must be distinct.

Values

Formally, a tree is constructed inductively as one of three cases

a leaf node

t = L(l, x:d)

where x:d is a typed data value

an ordered node

t = O(l, xs)

where xs is a list of trees

an unordered node

t = U(l, a)

where a: L ⇒ T is a finite partial map from labels to trees

In each case, the label l is called the rootlabel of the tree t, denoted l = #t.

Our model for access to the nodes allows selection of a child of an unordered node by label, and traversal of the children of an ordered node in order.

Given a suitable representation of the underlying datavalues, such a labelled tree can be represented by an xml document, with labels as tags, and an optional attribute "unordered".

2007-03-13

NAME

chpass, chfn, chsh, -- add or change user database information

SYNOPSIS

chpass [-alist] [-pencpass] [-eexpiretime] [-snewshell] [user]

DESCRIPTION

The chpass utility allows editing of the user database information asso-
ciated with user or, by default, the current user.
The chfn, and chsh utilities behave identically to chpass. (There is
only one program.)
The information is formatted and supplied to an editor for changes.
Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed.
The options are as follows:
-a The super-user is allowed to directly supply a user database
entry, in the format specified by passwd(5), as an argument.
This argument must be a colon (``:'') separated list of all the
user database fields, although they may be empty. [Note that
this only changes the user database, master.passwd.]
-p The super-user is allowed to directly supply an encrypted pass-
word field, in the format used by crypt(3), as an argument. [See
the discussion in getpwent(3) about types of passwords; this
option may not be appropriate.]
-eexpiretime
Change the account expire time. This option is used to set the
expire time from a script as if it was done in the interactive
editor.
-snewshell
Attempt to change the user's shell to newshell.
Possible display items are as follows:
Login: user's login name
Password: user's encrypted password [do not use this to
change a password; use passwd(1) instead]
Uid: user's login
Gid: user's login group
Class: user's general classification
Change: password change time
Expire: account expiration time
Full Name: user's real name (*)
Home Directory: user's home directory
Shell: user's login shell
NOTE(*) - Historically, the so-call "GECOS" field in the
user database entry contain the full name plus
other information. Only the full name is cur-
rently supported.
The login field is the user name used to access the computer account.
The password field contains the encrypted form of the user's password.
Do not use this to change a password; use passwd(1) instead.
The uid field is the number associated with the login field. Both of
these fields should be unique across the system (and often across a group
of systems) as they control file access.
While it is possible to have multiple entries with identical login names
and/or identical user id's, it is usually a mistake to do so. Routines
that manipulate these files will often return only one of the multiple
entries, and that one by random selection.
The group field is the group that the user will be placed in at login.
Since BSD supports multiple groups (see groups(1)) this field currently
has little special meaning. This field may be filled in with either a
number or a group name (see group(5)).
The class field references class descriptions in /etc/login.conf and is
typically used to initialize the user's system resource limits when they
login.
The change field is the date by which the password must be changed.
The expire field is the date on which the account expires.
Both the change and expire fields should be entered in the form ``month
day year'' where month is the month name (the first three characters are
sufficient), day is the day of the month, and year is the year.
The fullname field contains the full name of the user.
The user's homedirectory is the full UNIX path name where the user will
be placed at login.
The shell field is the command interpreter the user prefers. If the
shell field is empty, the Bourne shell, /bin/sh, is assumed. When alter-
ing a login shell, and not the super-user, the user may not change from a
non-standard shell or to a non-standard shell. Non-standard is defined
as a shell not found in /etc/shells.
Once the information has been verified, chpass uses pwd_mkdb(8) to update
the user database.

LOOKUPD AND DIRECTORY SERVICE AWARENESS

User database entries (among other things) are under the control of
lookupd(8) and may be physically located in many different places,
including local and remote netinfo(5) databases, directory service agents
such as LDAP servers and flat file databases such as master.passwd. This
version of chpass is currently limited to changing user database entries
in the flat file and local netinfo databases.

ENVIRONMENT

The vi(1) editor will be used unless the environment variable EDITOR is
set to an alternate editor. When the editor terminates, the information
is re-read and used to update the user database itself. Only the user,
or the super-user, may edit the information associated with the user.
See pwd_mkdb(8) for an explanation of the impact of setting the
PW_SCAN_BIG_IDS environment variable.

NAME

finger -- user information lookup program

SYNOPSIS

finger [-46glmpshoT] [user...] [user@host...]

DESCRIPTION

The finger utility displays information about the system users.
Options are:
-4 Forces finger to use IPv4 addresses only.
-6 Forces finger to use IPv6 addresses only.
-s Display the user's login name, real name, terminal name and write
status (as a ``*'' before the terminal name if write permission
is denied), idle time, login time, and either office location and
office phone number, or the remote host. If -o is given, the
office location and office phone number is printed (the default).
If -h is given, the remote host is printed instead.
Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and min-
utes if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present. If it
is an ``*'', the login time indicates the time of last login.
Login time is displayed as the day name if less than 6 days, else
month, day; hours and minutes, unless more than six months ago,
in which case the year is displayed rather than the hours and
minutes.
Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
displayed as single asterisks.
-h When used in conjunction with the -s option, the name of the
remote host is displayed instead of the office location and
office phone.
-o When used in conjunction with the -s option, the office location
and office phone information is displayed instead of the name of
the remote host.
-g This option restricts the gecos output to only the users' real
name. It also has the side-effect of restricting the output of
the remote host when used in conjunction with the -h option.
-l Produce a multi-line format displaying all of the information
described for the -s option as well as the user's home directory,
home phone number, login shell, mail status, and the contents of
the files .forward, .plan, .project and .pubkey from the user's
home directory.
If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is pre-
sented in the form ``hh:mm''. Idle times greater than a day are
presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-
NNN-NNNN''. Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed
as the appropriate subset of that string. Numbers specified as
five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''. Numbers specified as
four digits are printed as ``xNNNN''.
If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(mes-
sages off)'' is appended to the line containing the device name.
One entry per user is displayed with the -l option; if a user is
logged on multiple times, terminal information is repeated once
per login.
Mail status is shown as ``No Mail.'' if there is no mail at all,
``Mail last read DDD MMM ## HH:MM YYYY (TZ)'' if the person has
looked at their mailbox since new mail arriving, or ``New mail
received ...'', ``Unread since ...'' if they have new mail.
-p Prevent the -l option of finger from displaying the contents of
the .forward, .plan, .project and .pubkey files.
-m Prevent matching of user names. User is usually a login name;
however, matching will also be done on the users' real names,
unless the -m option is supplied. All name matching performed by
finger is case insensitive.
-T Disable the piggybacking of data on the initial connection
request. This option is needed to finger hosts with a broken TCP
implementation.
If no options are specified, finger defaults to the -l style output if
operands are provided, otherwise to the -s style. Note that some fields
may be missing, in either format, if information is not available for
them.
If no arguments are specified, finger will print an entry for each user
currently logged into the system.
The finger utility may be used to look up users on a remote machine. The
format is to specify a user as ``user@host'', or ``@host'', where the
default output format for the former is the -l style, and the default
output format for the latter is the -s style. The -l option is the only
option that may be passed to a remote machine.
If the file .nofinger exists in the user's home directory, finger behaves
as if the user in question does not exist.
The optional finger.conf(5) configuration file can be used to specify
aliases. Since finger is invoked by fingerd(8), aliases will work for
both local and network queries.

ENVIRONMENT

The finger utility utilizes the following environment variable, if it
exists:
FINGER This variable may be set with favored options to finger.

SEE ALSO

HISTORY

The finger command appeared in 3.0BSD.

BUGS

The current FINGER protocol RFC requires that the client keep the connec-
tion fully open until the server closes. This prevents the use of the
optimal three-packet T/TCP exchange. (Servers which depend on this
requirement are bogus but have nonetheless been observed in the Internet
at large.)
BSD July 22, 2002 BSD