The basics: finger does look at /etc/passwd for its info. It prints the
contents of the username and GCOS (what you're calling "Real name") fields.
GCOS can contain other info besides real name ("man chfn" for details) but
finger doesn't search the other info (or display the results of the
free-form "other" component of GCOS). finger also displays (but, again,
doesn't search) the contents of the user's .plan and .project files, so you
might think about using them to display some desired information.
But you want to *search* on additional information, not just display it. I
doubt you can accomplish this via finger. But if you can encode the info you
need in the standard passwd fields, plus perhaps the email aliases file, it
shouldn't be too hard to write a small custom app that does what you want.
At 02:56 PM 4/9/99 -0500, Justin Wilson wrote:
> Here is what I want to do:
> Our server has a distinction between corprate users and personal
>users. Each corporate account has additional emails, etc. I want to be able
>to search users via about 4 different criteria. How can I accomplish this via
>finger? I assume when you finger a user, it just looks at the username and
>Real name. Is there a way to add more fields which finger recognizes? I
>assume finger looks at the password file? Am I correct there?
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94303-3603
650.328.4219 voice [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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