Fingering BITNET addresses?

[Doug Sewell]

In article <11025 at medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, khan at cs.purdue.EDU (Muhammad
Farrukh Khan) says:
>
>How does one finger a bitnet address?  Thanks!
>

It depends.

If you have a bitnet-type (NJE) connection via RSCS, JNET, UREP, or some
other program that looks like RSCS, and you have direct or indirect NJE
links to that site, you can issue a command to determine the number of
users, the names of the users, or to 'finger' a particular user.

On VM systems, it would be 'CP SM rscs-server CMD node CPQ USER' (to
get a count), 'CP SM rscs-server CMD node CPQ NAMES' (list of names)
or 'CP SM rscs-server CMD node CPQ U userid' (query a user).  The
specific syntax for sending a command (CP SM rscs-server CMD) will
vary among different RSCS-lookalike programs.  Also, you must use their
NJE address, not their internet/domain address (for example, we're
YSUB.BITNET = nje address YSUB, our internet address is YSUB.YSU.EDU).

Also, be aware that some sites (for security or network resources
reasons) have disables some or all of these commands.  A site that
has 400+ users logged on would send back 100+ messages via bitnet.
-----
There are also bitnet-accessable user directory servers.  Some of them
are accessable by message (bitnet-type connections only), others accept
e-mail queries as well.  Some LISTSERV servers have user directory
services active, as well.  These servers generally assume you already
know the name and/or userid of the person you want information about,
and generally DON'T indicate whether the person is logged on or not.

In these cases, there is no standard (LISTSERV and the University of
Kentucky Whois server are the closest ones I know of).
-----
If the BITNET site is running an IP (port 79) finger-server, and you
know the internet (not bitnet) address of that site, it would respond
with whatever the particular finger-server is supposed to reply.  In
this case, the fact that the site is also a Bitnet site is moot, because
you're using IP to access them.

On our VM system, we run the Columbia finger-server code.  It returns
the same information that CPQ via RSCS/Bitnet would return (rather terse,
just one or more user-terminal pairs, or 'userid not logged on').

--
Doug Sewell, Tech Support, Computer Center,
Youngstown State University, Youngstown,  OH 44555
E-mail: DOUG at YSUB.BITNET, DOUG at YSUB.YSU.EDU, ...!uunet!ysub.ysu.edu!doug
>> I am not a wizard.  What I do isn't magic.  I am a computer professional.