From: gengenba@forwiss.uni-passau.de (Michael Gengenbach)
Subject: Problems and suggestions for finger-1.36
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Distribution: gnu
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 13:19:43 GMT

Hi,

I think 1.36 is at last a usable version of GNU finger :-), but I still
had a few problems when installing GNU finger on our site. So here are
a few bugs and some suggestions. I'm sorry, but I don't have much fixes
right now. Here is my environment:

   - I run GNU finger 1.36 from ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de
   - the hardware is Sun 4 and DECstation
   - OS is SunOS 4.1.2 and Ultrix V4.2A (Rev. 47)
   - C compiler is gcc 2.0
   - the finger server runs on a DEC, clients on DECs and Suns
   - on Sun and DEC we have X11R5 from MIT, no DECwindows, no OpenWindows

And here are the bugs and suggestions:

   - the make command fails to create version.o and maildir.o,
     so you have to call make manually for these targets

   - with Ultrix there is an error when linking in.fingerd:
	>gcc -O -I./.. -I./../include  -DDIRENT=1 -DDIRENT=1 -DSTD
	>C_HEADERS=1 -DHAVE_UNISTD_H=1 -DHAVE_UT_HOST=1 -DHAVE_FCNTL_H=1
	>-DHAVE_LASTLOG_H=1 -DHAVE_ALLOCA_H=1 -DHAVE_GETUTENT=1
	>-DHAVE_ST_RDEV=1 -DHAVE_TM_ZONE=1 -DNO_ARG_ARRAY=1
	>-DHAVE_LONG_FILE_NAMES=1 -DHAVE_RESTARTABLE_SYSCALLS=1 
	>-DHAVE_DEV_CONSOLE=1 -DHAVE_DEV_MOUSE=1 -o in.fingerd
	>in.fingerd.o ../lib/libfinger.a ../version.o ../maildir.o
	>-lc -lm -L/public/projects/x11/X.V11R5/lib -lXaw -lXt -lXmu
	>-lXext -lX11
	>ld:
	>Undefined:
	>XtGetValues

   - INSTALL says
	>the correct TCP port for `in.cfingerd' (port 2003)
     but I think, the service name is still cfinger. Same with service
     for finger.

   - X11R5 is the current release from MIT, so why not use it as a default?

   - our Xaw header files (X11R5) are in X11/Xaw, but in lib/x_show_face.c
     this is only used #ifdef X11R4 (I had problems with this a couple of
     times, so it might be our X11 installation. But I did it myself and
     I think we have a standard MIT X11R5 installation).

   - I sometimes get a wrong idle value, like in
	>vogl    Max Vogl       df    26 yea *p0 forwiss. (gollum.forwiss.u)
				      ^^^^^^
   - INSTALL says
	>If you want to include the unsupported code for mugshots [...]
	>as well as edit `lib/Makefile.in', `lib/site/Makefile.in'
     but I didn't see any need to edit these two (maybe because of my
     stupidity?).

   - if you do a finger -l @host, there is no response

   - and the same happens with a normal finger, if you define INFO_IS_DEFAULT.
     I would like it best, when a 'finger user@host' uses long format and
     'finger @host' uses short format.

   - INSTALL says
	>For example, you might try `finger --face bfox@aurel.cns.caltech.edu'
     but I get
	>finger: aurel.cns.caltech.edu doesn't have face bits for bfox

   - if I do a finger for part of a real name of a user who has not
     logged on since the installation of the GNU finger daemon, I get
	>There is no user named xxxx here; [...]
	>It is also quite possible that Matthias is a mail alias. In that case,
	>you can finger it by giving the ``-l'' option [...]
     I think this sounds missunderstandig, because there are actually
     users named xxxx.

   - if on user with xxxx in real name has logged on since the installation,
     only he will be shown from finger --brief and not all users named
     xxxx.

   - the mugshots are unsupported, but maybe someone can tell me what's
     wrong. I define X11_MUGSHOTS and provide a X11 bitmap for me. But
     what is shown is a chaotic picture. The normally white looking icon
     looks mostly black and I can't recognize anything from the pixels.

   - I have problems with the ttylocs file. I have e.g.
	>baier    Joern Baier       0:18  *p1 idril.fo (gandalf.forwiss.)
     and I want to provide the room number of host 
     gandalf.forwiss.uni-passau.de. I tried to versions in ttylocs, but
     none worked:
	>gandalf         FMI 033
     and
	>gandalf.forwiss.uni-passau.de		FMI 033

   - CHECK_RDONLY_FINGERRC is highly recommended. Shouldn't it be used
     as a default?

   - I appreciate that the install_finger is gone, because don't like
     running scripts as root, but you could provide examples for /etc/inetd
     entries, say for the most common UNIX derivates.

I hope this will help someone. And thanks for providing free software!

Regards

   Michael
-- 
"You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm   |  Michael Gengenbach, FORWISS Passau
not the only one."   -- John Lennon   |  gengenbach@forwiss.uni-passau.de

Newsgroups: gnu.utils.bug