Re: tlug: What is identd?

[Jim Tittsler <jwt-tlug@example.com>]

On Fri, Mar 19, 1999 at 04:37:56PM +0000, Darren Cook wrote:
> I've been pruning inetd.conf (the only things left are sshd, pop-3 and
> auth), but I don't know if I can remove the "auth....in.identd" line. What
> does it do?

identd handles incoming requests to learn the user of a TCP connection. The
most common use is to log who is running the process that just established a
connection to your server (SMTP most commonly I suppose, but also IRC, FTP,
telnet, etc).  This gives you a piece of information that you can give the
sysadmin of that machine if it turns out the connection was unwelcome.  An
example would be catching someone running a MTA in their own account and
sending SPAM... this would allow you to consult with the sysadmin there
and identify that it wasn't his "real" MTA.

It can reveal more about your system (like system type) or users than a
paranoid person may be comfortable with, although pidentd can be configured
to control the information returned.

The ident protocol is described in RFC1413.  (On a Redhat system, you
probably have a copy of it in your /usr/dos/pidentd* directory.)

-- 
Jim Tittsler, Tokyo   ICQ: 5981586

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