UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Well, I hate to suggest this, because I don't like the solution... But you could have a .netrc.user1 and a .netrc.user2. The scripts would copy the right one to .netrc just before doing the rexec. Security-wise this is not much worse than a single .netrc file. But it creates a race condition. Two scripts running at the same time could step on one another.

Thank you.

Yes, I thought about "parallel" .netrc files, but it's more than possible that at the same time other application should be run on the same server and it will require the "source" netrc.

Can you tell me please if some sense exists to have an alias for the remote server in /etc/hosts?
Something about:
IP-addr server-name
IP-addr server-alias
And to specify in .netrc server-name with one UserID and server-alias with other UserID?
Or rexec can not be tricked in such way and it will be sure that this IP-addr is connected to only server-name?

Anta

I would be very surprised if you could fool the networking routines that easily. The targeted hostname will be converted to an IP address. Each line read from .netrc will also be converted to an IP address and the IP addresses are compared. If it is coded any other way, I would consider it broken. However if the box has 2 IP addresses that can reach it, you can have one line for each IP address.

A final thought: establish a second user id on the source server for the second application. Now each user has a .netrc file.

Thank you, Perderabo.

You confirmed my suspicions on name resolution.
Yes, there are some "roundabout" ways to solve the problem.
I just hoped the "direct" way exists too.

Anta