identd(1M) identd(1M)
NAME
identd - TCP/IP IDENT protocol server
SYNOPSIS
seconds] uid] gid] port] address] charset]
DESCRIPTION
is a server which implements the TCP/IP proposed standard IDENT user identification protocol as specified in the RFC 1413 document.
operates by looking up specific TCP/IP connections and returning the user name of the process owning the connection.
Arguments
The flag, which is the default mode, should be used when starting the daemon from with the "nowait" option in the file. Use of this
mode will make start one daemon for each connection request.
The flag should be used when starting the daemon from with the "wait" option in the file. The daemon will run either forever, until
a timeout, as specified by the flag, occurs.
The flag can be used to make the daemon run in standalone mode without the assistance from This mode is the least preferred mode, and
not supported by HP, since a bug or any other fatal condition in the server will make it terminate and it will then have to be
restarted manually.
The option is used to specify the timeout limit. This is the number of seconds a server started with the flag will wait for new con-
nections before terminating. The server is automatically restarted by whenever a new connection is requested if it has termi-
nated. A suitable value for this is 120 (2 minutes), if used. It defaults to no timeout. That is, it will wait forever, or until
a fatal condition occurs in the server.
The option is used to specify a user id number which the server should switch to after binding itself to the TCP/IP port if using the
mode of operation.
The option is used to specify a group id number which the server should switch to after binding itself to the TCP/IP port if using
the mode of operation.
The option is used to specify an alternative port number to bind to if using the mode of operation. It can be specified by name or by
number. Defaults to the IDENT port(113).
The option is used to specify the local address to bind the socket to if using the mode of operation. Can only be specified by the
IP address and not by the domain name. The default value in IPv4 is and in IPv6 it is which normally represents all the local
addresses.
The flag makes display the version number and the exit.
The flag tells to use the System logging daemon for logging purposes.
The flag tells to not reveal the operating system type it is run on and to instead always return "OTHER".
The flag tells to always return instead of the or errors.
The flags tells to add the optional (according to the IDENT protocol) character set designator to the reply generated. <charset>
should be a valid character set as described in the MIME RFC in upper case characters.
The flags tells to always return user numbers instead of user names if you wish to keep the user names a secret.
The flag makes check for a file in each home directory for a user which the daemon is about to return the user name for. It that file
exists then the daemon will give the error instead of the normal response.
The flag makes use a mode of operation that will allow multiple requests to be processed per session. Each request is specified one
per line and the responses will be returned one per line. The connection will not be closed until the connecting part closes its
end of the line.
The flag enables some debugging code that normally should be enabled since that breaks the protocol and may reveal information that
should not be available to outsiders.
INSTALLATION
is invoked either by the internet server (see inetd(1M)) for requests to connect to the IDENT port as indicated by the file (see ser-
vices(4)) when using the or modes of operation or started manually by using the mode of operation.
WARNINGS
The options and are currently not supported on HP-UX.
EXAMPLES
Since the server is located in you can put either:
or:
into the file.
To start it using the unsupported mode of operation, you can put a line like this into the file under the 'start' section:
This will cause to be started as daemon whenever is running. It will run in the background as user 2, group 2 (user group
SEE ALSO
inetd.conf(4).
identd(1M)