wildcards in internet adresses

[John E. Davis]

Hi,

   It seems that more and more systems are using workstations clustered
together somehow such that users can log in to anyone of them with the same
username/password combination due to a 'yellow pages' database.  However, this
causes a problem.

   Suppose, I have a friend on a distant machine with internet address a.1.2.3.
In fact, suppose due to the yellow pages, he can log onto machines a.1.2.3,
b.1.2.3, c.1.2.3,....., z.1.2.3.  Now suppose I want to see if he is on his
system but I do not know all the a,b,c,...z.  Is there anyway to do something
like:

    finger friend@*.1.2.3

Perhaps, finger does not support this.  How can I at least find all the
possible a,b,c,...,z knowing the internet address ends in 1.2.3?

Thanks,
       
--
John

  bitnet: davis at ohstpy
internet: davis at pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu