Finger protocol support
Author: -fab- <fab@redterminal.org>
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Published on: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 08:03:58 +0100
Last updated: Sat, 05 Oct 2024 15:40:00 +0200
Since finding out about the finger protocol and its use in the smolnet/gemini community, I wanted to add my own finger service to my server. It's nice to see this old protocol revived, so I made this a little short time project.
On my FreeBSD machine I use fingerd which comes with the OS and is handled by inetd. I installed my own bash script to handle requests. It can run scripts for every registered finger user or simply return a text file. You can reach it with the following links/commands:
"finger @redterminal.org" for a list of available fingers
"finger fab@redterminal.org" for my personal information and my /now page for what I'm on in the near future.
"finger feed@redterminal.org" for my latest Mastodon posts
"finger gemlog@redterminal.org" for my latest gemlog post
"finger phlog@redterminal.org" for my latest gopher phlog post
There are a few other Finger services in the Smolnet which you can try and search:
"finger ring@thebackupbox.net": Epochs Finger Ring - A Community you should join
"finger fingerverse@happynetbox.com": Communities, Services and Finger itself
"https://plan.cat": A public finger server where you can set up your personal Finger address (www)
"finger textfile@typed-hole.org": A random textfile from 'textfiles.com' as a Finger
"finger location@graph.no": A Finger for a weather graph of 'location' (e.g. anchorage)
I would like to see more Smolnet users with their own "Finger-Address". The protocol was developed in 1977 and is therefore almost 15 years older than Gopher. Nevertheless, one can do some interesting things with it, as shown by the Finger addresses above. It would be nice to see some more interesting usages.
👉 Finger me!
All in all - Have fun!
-fab-
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