Subject: Signature and Finger FAQ
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Jan 1995 18:27:49 GMT
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions,comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.pine,comp.mail.elm,news.software.nn,comp.unix.questions,alt.internet.services,comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers

Archive-name: signature_finger_faq
Posting-frequency: approximately monthly
Last-modified: 31 October 1994

            _____________________________________________________
  _________|                                                     |_________
  \        |   SIGNATURE AND FINGER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS   |        /
   \       |            Telling the World Who You Are            |       /
    \      |                                                     |      /
     \     |                                                     |     /
     /     |           Copyright (c) 1994 Nancy McGough          |     \
    /      |                                                     |      \
   /       |_____________________________________________________|       \
  /____________)                                              (___________\

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  0.0 About this Article
  ... 0.1 Copyright Notice
  ... 0.2 Acknowledgements
  ... 0.3 Terminology and Notation
  ... 0.4 Getting the Latest Version of This Article
  ... 0.5 Reading the Hypertext Version of This Article
  ... 0.6 Reading the Plain Text Version of This Article
  1.0 Automatic Signature - Basic Unix Instructions
  ... 1.1 Pine 3.90 and Above
  ... 1.2 Pine 3.89 and Below
  ... 1.3 Elm
  ... 1.4 Mail
  ... 1.5 Emacs Mail Mode
  ... 1.6 MH and Emacs MH-E
  ... 1.7 NN
  ... 1.8 GNUS
  ... 1.9 Troubleshooting Signature Problems
  2.0 Finger - Basic Unix Instructions
  ... 2.1 URLs for Fingering
  ... 2.2 Changing Your Default Finger Info: chfn
  ... 2.3 Adding More to Your Finger Info: .plan & .project
  ... 2.4 Finding Out Who Fingers You
  ... 2.5 Backfinger Script
  ... 2.6 Interesting Places to Finger
  3.0 Putting Ascii Art in your Signature and Finger Files
  4.0 Organization Header
  ... 4.1 Tin and the RN Family
  ... 4.2 Pine 3.90 and Above
  ... 4.3 Elm
  ... 4.4 NN
  5.0 Contributing to this FAQ

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:00 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: 0.0 About this Article

This article describes these three ways to tell people on the Internet
more about yourself:
 * Signature file automatically included in your mail and news messages
 * Finger information displayed when people finger you
 * Organization line in your mail and news headers

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:10 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 0.1 Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 1994 by Nancy McGough.  This collection of articles is first
published in 1994 and is copyrighted by Nancy McGough (except subjects 1.4,
1.5, 1.6, 1.8, and 2.5 which are Copyright (c) 1994 by the authors named in
the sections).  No portion of this work may be sold or put to commercial use
without express written consent of the authors.  This restriction covers
publication in any form, or distribution by any method, which permits this
work to be visually perceived, either directly or with the aid of any machine
or device. Permission is granted to republish or redistribute this article in
its entirety for noncommercial use if this copyright notice is not removed or
altered.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:20 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 0.2 Acknowledgements

+ means someone who is new since the last time I posted this FAQ
  (i.e., since 16 September 1994).

Thanks to these people who contributed digest items:
   Jym Dyer <[email-masked]>
   Mike Northam <[email-masked]>
 + Janet Rosenbaum <[email-masked]>

Thanks to these people who sent suggestions:
 + Jeff Blaine <[email-masked]>
   Stephen Cristol <[email-masked]>
 + Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
 + Sven Guckes <[email-masked]>
 + Mary McGough <[email-masked]>
   David L Miller <[email-masked]>
 + Skip Montanaro <[email-masked]>
   David W. Tamkin <[email-masked]>
   Sid Weinstein <[email-masked]>

Thanks to these people who've written documents, programs, or asii art that 
are pointed to in this article.  (This list is not complete right now....)
 + Bob Allison <[email-masked]>
 + Jorn Barger <[email-masked]>
 + Piero Serini <[email-masked]>
 + Doug Stevenson <[email-masked]>
 + Bill Wohler <[email-masked]>
 + Scott A. Yanoff <[email-masked]>

Special thanks to:
 + Thomas A. Fine <[email-masked]> for setting up and
   maintaining the hypertext archive of FAQs.  Congratulations
   to him for winning O'Reilly and Associates' "The Best of the
   Net" award!

Please let me know if I've left you, or anyone else, out of this list.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:30 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 0.3 Terminology and Notation

  Term  Meaning
  ====  =======
  FTP   File Transfer Protocol
  HTML  HyperText Markup Language
  HTTP  HyperText Transport Protocol
  RFC   Internet Request For Comments Document
  URL   Uniform Resource Locator
  ^x    Hold down the Ctrl key and the x key at the same time
  ~     your home directory $HOME  (see * below)

* In this article I use ~ (tilde) to mean your home directory.  Note that 
  some shells, like the Bourne shell (sh) and Bourne-again shell (bash), do 
  not understand the tilde notation so you will need to use $HOME instead.  
  You can always get to your home directory by typing ``cd''.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:40 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 0.4 Getting the Latest Version of This Article

If this article is over two months old then there is probably an updated
version of it in all the usual archives.  Please get the latest version
from one of these places:

World Wide Web (the nicest format for online reading!):
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/signature_finger_faq/faq.html

Anonymous FTP:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/signature_finger_faq

Email:
Send mail to [email-masked] containing the following:
    send usenet/news.answers/signature_finger_faq

UUCP:
uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/signature_finger_faq

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:50 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 0.5 Reading the Hypertext Version of This Article

The best way to read this FAQ (and most other FAQs too) is to view the
hypertext version using a Web browser such as Lynx, Mosaic, Netscape, 
WinWeb, or Cello.  This will allow you to easily jump:
   * between subjects in this article
   * to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
   * to an Internet Request For Comments document (RFC)
   * to a manual page

This and all FAQs that are crossposted to news.answers can be accessed through:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html

This particular FAQ is at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/signature_finger_faq/faq.html

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:00:60 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 0.6 Reading the Plain Text Version of This Article

If you are reading the plain text version (i.e., not the hypertext version) of 
this FAQ it is in RFC1153 digest format which means each subject is formatted 
as a mini mail message with its own Date, From, and Subject (and sometimes 
Followup-To) headers.  Some newsreaders and mailers make it really easy
to jump to a subject in an article that is in digest format.  Here are 
instruction for some newsreaders:

* NN's default is to split a digest and present each digest item on the
  menu.  If you have changed the default by putting ``set split off'' in
  your ~/.nn/init file then you can split a digested article by typing G%
  while viewing it.  This will present each digest item on a submenu.  You
  can then read, followup-to, save, print, etc. individual digest items.

* In trn (and its relatives like rn and strn) you can type ^g (Ctrl key and
  g key pressed simultaneously) to skip to the next line that begins with
  "Subject: "

* In emacs GNUS, C-c C-n will skip to the next digest article (C-C C-p will
  go back to the previous digest article).

If your newsreader or mailer does not have a built-in command that allows
you to easily read a digest you can pipe the article to ``formail -ds''
which will split the article into separate mail messages, and then you can
use your mailer or newsreader (if it can read mail folders) to read the
folder.  For example, here's what you would do in Tin while viewing
the article:

Type...                             In order to...
-------                             --------------
|                                   Pipe
a                                   Specify the article is to be piped
formail -ds >> ~/Folders/faq.split  Split the digest into individual
                                    messages and put them in a file named
                                    ~/Folders/faq.split.  (Replace ~/Folders
                                    with your folder directory.)
pine -if ~/Folders/faq.split        Use Pine to read the newly created folder.

For more information see the formail(1) and procmail(1) man pages.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:00 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: 1.0 Automatic Signature - Basic Unix Instructions

Q: How can I have a signature automatically appended to my news articles
   and mail messages?

A: The answer depends on your newsreader and mailer but the following
   procedure works for many Unix newsreaders and mailers.

Type...                 In order to...
-------                 --------------
cd                      Change to your home directory (i.e., $HOME or ~)

pico .signature         Use the pico editor to create a .signature file.
                        (Replace "pico" with another editor if you like.)

<your signature>        Note that most systems require your sig to be <= 4
                        lines.  And it's good netiquette to make it as
                        short as possible.

<save and exit>         In Pico use ^x to exit and answer y when asked
                        if you want to save your changes.

chmod 644 .signature    Make .signature readable by all.

ls -l .signature        Check the permission: it should say -rw-r--r--

chmod +x .              Make home directory searchable by all.

ls -ld .                Check permission of home dir: it should say drwx?-x?-x
                        The ?'s may be r's or hyphens or one of each (i.e.,
                        drwx--x--x, drwxr-xr-x, drwxr-x--x, drwx--xr-x).

ls -la .                Check permission of files in home dir.  If any are
                        world or group writable (?????w??w?) you'll probably
                        want to change this by doing a "chmod go-w FileName".
                        For more info on changing permissions see chmod
                        man pages.

For many newsreaders and mailers this is all you need to do to set up your
signature.  For example the default behaviour of tin(1) and the rn family of 
tools - rn(1), trn(1), strn(1), & Pnews(1) - is to automatically append 
 ~/.signature, if it exists.  If you use Pine, Elm, Mail, Emacs Mail Mode, MH, 
NN, or GNUS follow the additional instructions described below.

After you've set everything up use your mailer to mail a test message
to yourself, and your newsreader and/or news poster (such as nnpost or Pnews)
to post an article to a test newsgroup (use a local newsgroup and Distribution
set to ``local'' to save bandwidth).  Note that with many newsreaders and 
mailers you will not see your signature while you are composing a message - 
it will be automaticlally appended when you send the message.  Note also that 
many systems add a line that contains ``-- '' to the top of your sig.  This is 
used by programs that automatically deal with mail or news to identify the 
start of the signature.

If you have a problem with your sig see section 1.9 on Troubleshooting.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:10 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.1 Pine 3.90 and Above
Followup-To: comp.mail.pine

The default for Pine 3.90 and above is to automatically append .signature (if 
it exists) to your messages.  Many people like to set the signature-at-bottom 
variable which will put your signature below both your message and the message 
you are replying to (if you've included it).  Note that if you are forwarding 
a message your signature will be put below the message that you write but 
above the forwarded message.

To change Pine's signature features:

1. From the Main Menu type s for Setup
2. Type c for Configuration
3. To change the value of the signature-at-bottom feature:
   a) Space bar and arrow down to the signature-at-bottom variable
   b) Type x to set/unset this variable.
4. To change the name of your signature file:
   a) Arrow down to the signature-file line
   b) Type c for Change Value
   c) Type the path and name of the file you want to use for your
      signature.  Note that ~ can be used for your $HOME directory.

SEE ALSO
========
Pine FAQ:       http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine/faq/
                ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine/docs/faq
Pine Manual:    pine(1)
Pine Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:20 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.2 Pine 3.89 and Below
Followup-To: comp.mail.pine

In addition to the basic signature instructions in 1.0 above, users of
Pine 3.89 often want to edit their ~/.pinerc file so that it contains
the following:

feature-list=signature-at-bottom

If you want more than one feature in your feature-list then they need to
be comma separated like this:

feature-list=old-growth,
	signature-at-bottom

Note that Pine's default is to use ~/.signature for your signature so you
only need to edit the following line if you are using a different file.

signature-file=

SEE ALSO
========
Pine FAQ:       http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine/faq/
                ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine/docs/faq
Pine Manual:    pine(1)
Pine Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:30 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.3 Elm
Followup-To: comp.mail.elm

In addition to the basic signature instructions in 1.0 above, users of Elm
should edit their ~/.elm/elmrc file so that it contains the following:

signature = ~/.signature
sigdashes = ON

Remember to delete any # characters before any variables you want
to set.  The defaults are indicated in comment lines starting with ###.

Note that if you want to have a different signature for local mail
(i.e., addresses that don't contain a ! or @) then you can use the
localsignature and remotesignature variables instead of the signature
variable (which specifies one sig for all mail).

SEE ALSO
========
Elm FAQs:   http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/elm/top.html
Elm Manual: elm(1)
Newsgroup:  comp.mail.elm

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:40 GMT
From: Jym Dyer <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.4 Mail
Followup-To: comp.mail.misc

By Jym Dyer, 1 April 1994

=o= Regular Unix "Mail" and "mail" don't have an automatic
signature mechanism.  Many people who normally use a more deluxe
mail utility occasionally find themselves resorting to using one
of these, in which case all you need to know is this command:

	~r $HOME/.signature

This simply tells Mail to include the text of the your signature
file.

=o= If you use Mail on a regular basis you may want to use the
semi-automatic signature feature.  When you're done typing your
message, you append a signature with this command:

	~a

=o= In order for this to work, though, you need to set the
"sign" mail variable.  There are two ways to implement this
variable.  The first is to set it in a $HOME/.mailrc file with
a command like this:

	set sign="Jym Dyer <[email-masked]>"

If your signature is more than one line long, you can use the
C language string syntax, as in these examples:

	set sign="Jym Dyer\n<[email-masked]>"

			-or-

	set sign="Jym Dyer\
	\n<[email-masked]>"

=o= The disadvantage of doing this in your .mailrc file is
that you now have to maintain the text of your signature in
two places.  Another approach that avoids this problem is to set
"sign" as an environment variable in your shell startup script.
For a Bourne-compatible shell, this is done with this command:

	sign="`cat $HOME/.signature`" export sign

For a C-shell, do this:

	setenv sign "`cat $HOME/.signature`"

SEE ALSO
========
Manual pages: mail(1)
Newsgroup:    comp.mail.misc

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:50 GMT
From: Jym Dyer <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.5 Emacs Mail Mode

By Jym Dyer, 1 April 1994

=o= Emacs Mail Mode is usually invoked with the "mail" or
"mail-other-window" commands (bound, respectively, to the
"C-x m" and "C-x 4 m" keys by default).  It is also invoked
from various Emacs mail and news packages.

=o= Mail Mode provides a "mail-signature" command to append
the contents of your signature file to the end of your mail
message.  This command is bound to "C-c C-w" by default,
so to insert the signature before mailing, simply type
"C-c "C-w".

=o= If you'd prefer to have your signature automatically
appended to the end of your mail message, the "mail-signature"
command can be put into your "mail-setup-hook" variable in
your $HOME/.emacs file, as in this example:

    (setq mail-setup-hook
      (function
       (lambda ()
	 (mail-signature) )))

This will put the signature in your mail message buffer.

SEE ALSO
========
FAQ: 
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5/faq.html    
Newsgroups: gnus.emacs.help and comp.emacs

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:60 GMT
From: Jym Dyer <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.6 MH and Emacs MH-E
Followup-To: comp.mail.mh

By Jym Dyer, 1 April 1994

=o= MH doesn't have an automatic signature mechanism, but it
is so configurable that there are a number of different ways
to implement one.  Check the periodic "MH Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ) with Answers" posting for details.

=o= CAVEAT:  If you use the environment variable SIGNATURE to
point to your signature file, MH will use it not as a signature,
but as your "fullname".  Even worse, if your version of MH was
built with the "UCI" option and you *don't* use the environment
variable SIGNATURE to point to another file, MH will use the
$HOME/.signature file for this purpose!  To see if your version
of MH has this behavior, enter this command:

  % send -help

And look for the string "[UCI]" in the output.

=o= There's an Emacs interface to MH, called MH-E.  It has its
own signature mechanism, which is invoked with the "mh-insert-
signature" command (bound to the "C-c C-s" keys by default).

=o= This will insert the file $HOME/.signature file by default.
If your signature file has another name (e.g., to avoid its
being used by an MH build with the "UCI" option), you can set
the "mh-signature-file-name" variable to refer to a different
file.

SEE ALSO
========
MH FAQ:       http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/mh-faq/top.html
MH Manual:    mh(1)
MH Newsgroup: comp.mail.mh

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:70 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.7 NN
Followup-To: news.software.nn

In addition to the basic signature instructions in 1.0 above, users of NN
should edit their ~/.nn/init file so that it contains the following:

set query-signature off
set append-signature-mail on
set append-signature-post offf

Note that the reason that you need to ``set append-signature-post off'' is
that the news posting software (usually inews) automatically appends
 ~/.signature if it exists.  If you ``set append-signature-post on'' then
both nn and inews append your sig and you'll send out two identical sigs
every time.

SEE ALSO
========
FAQ:       http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/nn-faq/top.html
Manual:    nn(1)
Newsgroup: news.software.nn

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:80 GMT
From: Mike Northam <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.8 GNUS
Followup-To: gnu.emacs.gnus

Copyright (c) 1994 Mike Northam

In addition to the basic signature instructions in 1.0 above, users of GNUS
should verify that the value of the variable gnus-signature-file points to the
right place.  If you're in emacs, you can do so by evaluating the following
expression:
gnus-signature-file
                   ^ put your cursor here and type C-x C-e

you should see "~/.signature" in the echo area.  If not, edit your
$HOME/.emacs file and add the following:
(setq gnus-signature-file "~/.signature"))
Then load your $HOME/.emacs file or merely restart emacs and the variable
should be set correctly.

SEE ALSO
========
FAQ: 
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5/faq.html    
Newsgroup: gnu.emacs.gnus

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:01:90 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 1.9 Troubleshooting Signature Problems

A common problem people have with .signature (and .plan, .project, and
 .forward ) files is that the permissions are not set correctly.  Check
to make sure that you have set the permissions as instructed in 1.0 above.

If you are still having problems read the man pages for your newsreader,
news poster, or mailer and search for the string "signature".  There may be a
variable you need to set in order for the ~/.signature to be appended.

Type...                 In order to...
-------                 --------------
man CommandName |less   Open man pages for CommandName (elm, pine, nn, tin
                        trn, Pnews, etc.) and pipe through less.  If your
                        system doesn't have less replace it with "more".

/signature              Search for first occurrence of "signature".

n                       Search for next occurrence of "signature".
                        Repeat the search until you find the appropriate
                        section of the manual.

u                       Page up half a screen. (This works in less but not in
                        more.)

[spacebar]              Page down a screen. (This works in both less and more.)

For more information on reading manual pages see the man(1), less(1), and/or
more(1) man pages.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:00 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: 2.0 Finger - Basic Unix Instructions

People around the world can find out more about you by fingering you.  
This is done by typing the following at a Unix prompt:

   finger [email-masked]

On some systems finger is linked to f so the following also works:

   f [email-masked]

Finger displays different information on different systems.  Often it will 
display your full name, your default shell, when your were last logged on, 
and your ~/.plan and ~/.project files.

If you finger someone and the display takes more than one page you can pipe 
the output through less (or more if you don't have less).  For example to 
find out about Halcyon, my Internet service provider, type:

  finger [email-masked] |less

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:10 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 2.1 URLs for Fingering

In addition to using the finger or f command you can finger people
through a Web browser.  The following is a form that Doug Stevenson
<[email-masked]> created:
  http://www.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/finger.pl

You can also use this URL:
  gopher://fully.qualified.domain.name:79/0userid
                                          ^ Note: 0 precedes the userid

For example you can finger my Internet service provider with this URL:
  gopher://halcyon.com:79/0info

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:20 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 2.2 Changing Your Default Finger Info: chfn

On many Unix systems you can change some of your default information,
such as your full name, by typing the following at your Unix prompt:

   chfn

If chfn is not available try "passwd -f".  If neither of these are
available then you will need to contact your system administrator and
ask him/her to change your full name, etc.

After you have changed your information check that they are in place
by fingering yourself.  Also to see a different display of your
information type the following at your Unix prompt:

  finger

This displays a one line description of everyone currently logged on
your system.

For more information see the chfn(1), passwd(1), and finger(1) man pages.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:30 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 2.3 Adding More to Your Finger Info: .plan & .project

Your ~/.project and ~/.plan files, if they exist, are displayed when you
are fingered.  Setting these up is essentially the same as setting
up a ~/.signature file (described in 1.0 above).

Type...                 In order to...
-------                 --------------
cd                      Change to your home directory.

pico .plan              Use the pico editor to create a .plan file.
                        (Replace "pico" with another editor if you like.)

chmod 644 .plan         Make .plan readable by all.

ls -l .plan             Check the permission: it should say -rw-r--r--

chmod +x .              Make home directory searchable by all.

ls -ld .                Check permission of home dir: it should say drwx?-x?-x.
                        The ?'s may be r's or hyphens or one of each.

ls -la .                Check permission of files in home dir.  If any are
                        world or group writable (?????w??w?) you'll probably
                        want to change this by doing a "chmod go-w FileName".
                        For more info on changing permissions see chmod
                        man pages.

If you want a .project file follow the same procedure.  Note that only the
first line of the .project is displayed (so you might as well only make
it one line!).

To test your changes finger yourself by type each of the following at your
Unix prompt:

    finger YourUserID
    finger [email-masked]

To ensure that people from other systems can finger you should ask someone 
who's not on your system to finger you too.

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:40 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 2.4 Finding Out Who Fingers You

This is complicated - and sometimes impossible - to setup.  For details see
the news.answers article ``Unix - Frequently Asked Questions (4/7) [Frequent
posting]'', subject ``4.9) How do I keep track of people who are fingering 
me?'' This article is archived in a number of places including these two URLs:

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/unix-faq/faq/part4/faq-doc-9.html
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/unix-faq/faq/part4

One easy thing that you can do to see if anyone has fingered you is type the 
following at your Unix prompt:

  ls -lu $HOME/.plan

This tells you the last time someone accessed your .plan, but it doesn't
tell you who it was.  I have this in my .login because it's interesting to
see when the last time someone was checking on me!

[Note that under AFS (Andrew File System, a distributed filesystem),
 ls -lu $HOME/.plan will not work due to the fact that AFS has no 
 notion of ``atime'', or ``last accessed time''.]

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:50 GMT
From: Janet Rosenbaum <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 2.5 Backfinger Script

Copyright (c) 1994 Janet Rosenbaum

There is a script available called, among other things, backfinger,
planner, and finger_logger (flogger or frogger, for short).  This script
makes your plan into a named pipe (just think of this as a sort of
pipe used with plumbing that opens out onto the screen of the person who
is fingering you (fred)) so that when it is accessed, it looks for a
program from which to get something to stick on fred's screen.

The script is called when you are fingered.  At that moment, it looks to
the finger port of your unix machine and sees which machine fred is
on, logs that machine's IP number and hostname, and the date.  The script
can then execute a command to spit a plan out on fred's screen.  (One
might get creative and write a program that generates random poetry or
use the fortune program or just do "cat plan_file".)   To make fred
think you are really cool, it also tells him what machine he is
fingering you from.

Some caveats:

	-- This program must be running at all times on your system even
	when you are logged out.  Leaving a background process like this
	annoys most sys admins to no end, especially on systems with
	high load.  Do **not** run the program unless you are sure that
	you are allowed to run background processes like this.

	-- Also, if you decide you want to stop running this program,
	remove your .plan file as soon as you kill the process.  If you
	do not do this, all finger processes for you will hang.

	-- This script only tells you the machine fred is fingering you
	from, not his actual username.  It is nearly impossible to get
	this information except at sites with bad security.

Given the above, I will distribute the script to those who can use it,
mostly for educational reasons.  I admit that I no longer run the
program, since my two main accounts are on rather high-load systems.
Nevertheless, I learned quite a lot from modifying these scripts and
otherwise playing with these ideas.

Here is the web site:

 http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~jrosen/scripts/logger.src

I will also try to post this answer and the program to comp.sources.misc
at least monthly for those without web access.  (For those who have not
figured out the web, try the program lynx if you are on a vt100 or vt220
type terminal.  If you are on an xterm or hpterm, look for xmosaic.)

Note:  I am not the author of this program.  The version I distribute is
virtually identical to that distributed by Steve Franklin.
Here are the real authors:

Author: Tony Rems <[email-masked]>
Modifications by Geoff Loker <[email-masked]>
More modifications by Karen Bruner <[email-masked]>
Even more modifications by Norman Franke <[email-masked]>
More revisions by Steve Franklin <[email-masked]>
Llamas and minor revision by The Blue One

Enjoy!

Janet

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:02:60 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 2.6 Interesting Places to Finger

Scott Yanoff's "Updated Internet Services List" contains a number of 
interesting places to finger.  If you access it through the following URL 
all the finger commands are links.

  http://www.uwm.edu/Mirror/inet.services.html

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:03:00 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: 3.0 Putting Ascii Art in your Signature and Finger Files

            ,     \    /      ,
           / \    )\__/(     / \
          /   \  (_\  /_)   /   \
     ____/_____\__\@  @/___/_____\____
    |             |\../|              |
    |              \VV/               |
    |        HAPPY HALLOWEEN!         |
    |_________________________________|
     |    /\ /      \\       \ /\    |             
     |  /   V        ))       V   \  |
     |/     `       //        '     \|         Art by Jorn Barger
     `              V                '                <[email-masked]>

It is considered good netiquette to keep your signature to four lines or
less.  And many news posters, like inews, will not post an article
that has a signature with more than four lines in it.  So, put large
pictures, your life story, etc. in your finger files or in your Web pages
and point people to them in your signature.

A good source of art for your signature and finger files is the ascii art
FAQ which contains (among others) these topics:
   9  Where can I find ASCII art?
  22  How do I put an animation in my plan?
  23  How do I make a sig?
  24  How do I have my sig automatically added to my posts and email?

The Ascii Art FAQ can be found at either of the following.  (I think
these aren't the same so you might want to look at both of them.)
http://gagme.wwa.com/~boba/faq.html
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/ascii-art-faq/faq.html

One particularly good place to find ascii art is:
http://gagme.wwa.com/~boba/scarecrow.html

SEE ALSO
========
Newsgroups: rec.arts.ascii, alt.ascii-art, alt.binaries.pictures.ascii
            and alt.ascii-art.animation

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:04:00 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: 4.0 Organization Header

The Organization header in news and mail messages is another way you can tell 
people about yourself.  It is an optional header described in section
2.2.8 of RFC1036, "Standard for Interchange of Usenet Messages."

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:04:10 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 4.1 Tin and the RN Family
Followup-To: news.newusers.questions

Tin and the rn family of tools (Pnews, rn, trn, strn) get information for the 
Organization header from the ORGANIZATION environment variable if it exists.  
In the csh or tcsh you can set this variable in your ~/.login with a line like 
this:

  setenv ORGANIZATION "Your Organization Name"

After you edit your ~/.login you can establish the setting by either logging
out and loggin back in or by typing the following at your Unix prompt:

  source ~/.login

To check that the variable is set type:

  printenv

After it is set, post a test message to a local test newsgroup with local
distribution to check that the Organization header is correct.

SEE ALSO
========
Manual Pages: tin(1), Pnews(1), rn(1), trn(1), strn(1)
Newsgroup:    news.newusers.questions

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:04:20 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 4.2 Pine 3.90 and Above
Followup-To: comp.mail.pine

In Pine 3.90 or above you set the Organization and other headers using the
customized-hdrs variable.

1. From the Main Menu type s for Setup
2. Type c for Configuration
3. To change the value of the customized-hdrs variable:
   a) Space bar and arrow down to the customized-hdrs variable.
   b) Type a for Add Value
   c) At the prompt type: Organization: Your Organization Name
      Note that if you have set the ORGANIZATION environment variable
      (which is described in 4.1 above) you can type: 
      Organization: $ORGANIZATION

While reading a message that you've received you can view the Organization
header and all the other headers by typing h.  If h does not work you need 
to go to your configuration menu and set the enable-full-header-cmd variable.

Note that the customized-hdrs variable is not available in Pine 3.89 and
below.

SEE ALSO
========
Pine FAQ:       http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine/faq/
                ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine/docs/faq
Pine Manual:    pine(1)
Pine Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:04:30 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 4.3 Elm
Followup-To: comp.mail.elm

Use your editor to create a file named ~/.elm/elmheaders that contains
any headers you'd like in your outgoing mail messages.  For example, my
 ~/.elm/elmheaders file contains this one line:

Organization: Infinite Ink, Seattle, WA, USA

SEE ALSO
========
Elm FAQs:   http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/elm/top.html
Elm Manual: elm(1)
Newsgroup:  comp.mail.elm

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:04:40 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: ... 4.4 NN
Followup-To: news.software.nn

Use your editor to put the following lines in your ~/.nn/init file:

set news-header Organization: Your Organization Name
set mail-header Organization: Your Organization Name

This will add the Organization header to both news and mail messages
sent from NN.

While reading messages with NN you can view the Organization line
by adding O (the letter "oh") to your header-lines variable setting.
I like the following setting:

set header-lines AFOnWK*Y

SEE ALSO
========
FAQ:       http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/nn-faq/top.html
Manual:    nn(1)
Newsgroup: news.software.nn

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1994 00:05:00 GMT
From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Subject: 5.0 Contributing to this FAQ

If you have any corrections, suggestions, or new digest items to contribute
to this FAQ please send them to me at [email-masked].  If you are reading this
with a viewer that understands the following URL you can use it to send me 
mail:

  mailto:[email-masked]

End of signature_finger_faq Digest
**********************************

--
 /\_/\
( o.o )   Nancy McGough   |   http://www.jazzie.com/ii/
 > ^ <    Infinite Ink    |   ftp://ftp.ii.com/pub/ii