From owner-freebsd-questions  Mon Jul  5 22:29:42 1999
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from indrani (p103-rb.wmni.net [209.40.66.113])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E4FBC14C2A
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>; Mon,  5 Jul 1999 22:29:37 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from jfox@wizzards.net)
Received: (from jfox@localhost)
	by indrani (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA02748
	for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 5 Jul 1999 22:33:27 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from jfox)
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 22:33:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John J. Fox IV" <jfox@wizzards.net>
Message-Id: <199907060533.WAA02748@indrani>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: finger: permission denied
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

Something has struck me as peculiar; as "root", I am unable to
make use of the "finger" utility.  I get "finger: Permission denied"
when I attempt to do so. ('w' and 'who' work as advertised).  A
regular user account, however, has no problem using 'finger'.

I've checked manpager, FAQ, and handbook, but failed to find reference
to this phenomenon.  I assume at this point that some sort of 
security concern is the cause of this, but that's purely a guess.

If anyone could clear this up for me, I would be most grateful.
(I know I don't *need* root to be able to use finger, but at
this point I really would like to know why this happens!)

Thanks,

John 
 
-- For the curious, I include some illustrative output:

As root:
--------
[indrani:~]# whoami
root
[indrani:~]# finger
finger: Permission denied
[indrani:~]# ls -l /usr/bin/finger
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  16104 May 17 20:40 /usr/bin/finger*

As regular user:
----------------
[indrani:~]$ whoami
jfox
[indrani:~]$ finger
Login            Name                 TTY  Idle  Login Time   Office  Phone
jfox             John J. Fox IV      *v0         Mon    21:11
jfox             John J. Fox IV      *v1      5  Mon    21:26

FWIW, the same behavior obtains with "safe_finger":
(BTW, I have no idea of the functionality differentiating
these two fingers)

As root:
--------
[indrani:~]# whoami
root
[indrani:~]# /usr/local/bin/safe_finger
finger: Permission denied
[indrani:~]# ls -l /usr/local/bin/safe_finger
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  5080 May 11 03:59 /usr/local/bin/safe_finger*
[indrani:~]#

As regular user:
----------------
[indrani:~]$ whoami
jfox
[indrani:~]$ /usr/local/bin/safe_finger
 Login            Name                 TTY  Idle  Login Time   Office  Phone
 jfox             John J. Fox IV      *v0         Mon    21:11
 jfox             John J. Fox IV      *v2         Mon    21:35


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message