Hello, It seems like finger recognized .project and .plan files for other users on tilde.team, but not me. Whenever I use finger from outside this session, it doesn't seem to recognize my plan or project files, but when I simply type 'finger ethan' when logged in via ssh, everything works. I'm not sure why this is. If anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know.
On 28/04/2026 20:50, ethan@tilde.team wrote:
Hello, It seems like finger recognized .project and .plan files for other users on tilde.team, but not me. Whenever I use finger from outside this session, it doesn't seem to recognize my plan or project files, but when I simply type 'finger ethan' when logged in via ssh, everything works. I'm not sure why this is. If anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know.
Hi, are those files world-readable?
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 09:14:13PM +0200, roughnecks wrote:
On 28/04/2026 20:50, ethan@tilde.team wrote:
Hello, It seems like finger recognized .project and .plan files for other users on tilde.team, but not me. Whenever I use finger from outside this session, it doesn't seem to recognize my plan or project files, but when I simply type 'finger ethan' when logged in via ssh, everything works. I'm not sure why this is. If anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know.
Hi, are those files world-readable?
They are. -rw-r--r-- 1 ethan team 11 Apr 28 18:26 .plan -rw-r--r-- 1 ethan team 64 Apr 28 18:26 .project
Pls see comments below...
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 06:50:30PM +0000, ethan@tilde.team wrote:
Hello, It seems like finger recognized .project and .plan files for other users on tilde.team, but not me. Whenever I use finger from outside this session, it doesn't seem to recognize my plan or project files, but when I simply type 'finger ethan' when logged in via ssh, everything works. I'm not sure why this is. If anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know.
Okay when I finger ethan I get:
<snip> ~$ finger ethan Login: ethan Name: Directory: /home/ethan Shell: /usr/bin/mksh On since Fri Nov 21 01:00 (UTC) on pts/14 from tmux(2366580).%44 26 minutes 56 seconds idle On since Wed Apr 29 01:34 (UTC) on pts/66 from tmux(2366580).%158 1 hour 15 minutes idle On since Thu Apr 23 19:16 (UTC) on pts/437 from tmux(2366580).%153 1 day 4 hours idle On since Sun Apr 26 22:11 (UTC) on pts/499 from tmux(2366580).%154 5 hours 40 minutes idle Last login Wed Apr 29 01:34 (UTC) on pts/11 from 68.40.206.9 No mail. No Plan. </snip>
When I finger you remotely I get:
<snip> ~$ finger ethan@tilde.team
hello 47-149-159-89.fdr01.rdbh.ca.ip.frontiernet.net,
Project:No Project. Plan:No Plan. </snip>
In short, it should just return those two text files. so these two files just sit in your home directory.
Try scribbling something out in your favorite editor (Vim) and then: `~$ chmod -v 644 /home/ethan/.profile` and try again.
If you're having problems from a windows box I can't help you, except maybe to suggest if you install "Cygwin" you can get a real ksh or Bash shell that you can install the finger client and use with. Either that or VirtualBox and then spin up a Linux or BSD VM.
If you are running a Linux machine then make sure you've got the client installed. Here's mine on Debian 14:
<snip> finger/now 0.17-17 amd64 [installed,local] user information lookup program </snip>
But I'm really wondering if you've got the correct permissions on your .plan and .project.
Let us know as I'm sure that others will be interested in learning what the issue was :)
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 06:50:30PM +0000, ethan@tilde.team wrote:
Hello, It seems like finger recognized .project and .plan files for other users on tilde.team, but not me. Whenever I use finger from outside this session, it doesn't seem to recognize my plan or project files, but when I simply type 'finger ethan' when logged in via ssh, everything works. I'm not sure why this is. If anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know.
The problem is that your home directory does not have any execute bits set:
thinknix@tilde:~$ ls -ld /home/ethan drw-r--r-- 33 ethan team 4096 Apr 28 17:44 /home/ethan
You need at least 711 perms for others to be able to read files inside your home directory (711 is a bit more secure than 755, but either will work). For directories, the execute bit is also called the search bit, since it is required to list the contents of a directory.
-thinknix
tildeteam@lists.tildeverse.org