11 Jan
2026
11 Jan
'26
2:30 a.m.
On 2026-01-10 18:41, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
As far as I am aware, Johnny is completely correct.
Internet Finger expects RFC822 formatted names. An example would be
slogin(a)venti2.tommytimesharing.org, which triggers TCP/IP transport.
Identifying the same user on the same machine on HECnet uses MAIL11
format, or VENTI2::SLOGIN. Application level routing works as Johnny
describes.
There's two pieces here - DECnet/HECnet addressing: node::user
and TCP/IP addressing: user(a)node.example.com
Both the DECUS ("my") VMS Finger and and RSTS/E Finger try to
handle both cases. In a reply I sent after you sent this, but
before I replied to this, I went into a lot more detail. Do a
search for "Ned Freed" in the message body to find the message
I'm talking about.
So the parser works by waking up on a trailing
"::" which is MAIL11
syntax to identify a node. MAIL11 format is preferred over RFC822, so
it checks that the proceeding characters are valid syntax for a DECnet
node (restricted SIXBIT, 6 characters maximum) and that the identified
node is in the HECnet database. If it fails, you get a parse error.
If you have no trailing "::" and bump into an "@" sign, then RFC822
parsing is used.
So the "::" is used as a field terminator, whereas the "@" functions
as
a field separator. Surrounding things with "::" probably won't work.
I believe I allow complex forwarded remote specifications to be
surrounded by double quotes, which is how I handle that funny Unix
'bang' (!) syntax.
VMS and RSTS/E Finger look at the host part and if it makes
sense to try it as a DECnet name (6 characters or less, all
legal, no periods) it silently tries it as DECnet first. If
it succeeds, then it prints the [NODE.DECnet] header and re-
ports what it got back. If none of the above conditions were
satisfied, or if the nodename doesn't exist in the DECnet data-
base, it's tried as TCP/IP hostname.
Oh, and they will also accept DECnet node numbers or IP ad-
dresses.
Under Tops-20, finger is integrated into the mail
system and is used to
resolve personal names into user ids.
Both VMS Finger and RSTS/E Finger have their own methods
of looking up users by personal names. VMS Finger gets
them from SYSUAF, RSTS/E Finger gets them from Mail-11 or
(if that isn't installed) a names file processed by a Fin-
ger utility.
-------------------------
On 1/10/26 5:19 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
I find it really weird to use that kind of syntax, and it probably will
create a mess if you involve some other TCP/IP based finger server in
such a line.
In my RSX implementation, you would write
FINGER SPC11D::@server.glaver.org
The RFC for finger on TCP/IP really states that hosts should be
processed right to left, and the username is at the left end. So you
can do
finger bqt@mim.softjar.se@foo.bar.host.net
Which would contact foo.bar.host.net from the local machine, and
request bqt(a)mim.softjar.se as the username to that host, which would
then go and contact mim.softjar.se, just requesting information for
user "bqt".
If you pass it something with :: as a separation between hosts and/or
usernames, a RFC compliant finger server will not do what you would
hope for.
I will obviously not force anyone to rewrite any implementation, but be
aware that a proper TCP/IP RFC compliant finger server is incompatible
with this form host host name chains.
Johnny
-------------------------
On 2026-01-10 23:08, Terri Kennedy wrote:
Example: Getting fancy ("Escaping" from HECnet):
SPCVXB::$ f spc11d::server.glaver.org::
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