[Samba] finger command with winbind / Linux

[Jason Keltz]

On 4/16/2021 2:27 PM, Rowland penny via samba wrote:
> On 16/04/2021 17:54, Jason Keltz via samba wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> A question about using the "finger" command under Linux when using 
>> winbind nss backend..
>>
>> When users were in /etc/passwd, and I would do:
>>
>> finger <first name of user> or
>>
>> finger <last name of user>
>>
>> I would get back all entries from /etc/passwd with that first name or 
>> last name matching my spec.
>>
>> With winbind in place, finger works, but only if I specify a full 
>> username.  It doesn't find users based on their name field.
>>
>> The truth is, I only set "displayname" to the full name, and that may 
>> be the issue because if I do finger "jas", the "Name:" field from 
>> finger is blank.
>>
>> However, if I edit my user record under AD and set "gecos: Jason 
>> Keltz", then finger "jas" now shows my full name under "Name:" field, 
>> but I still can't search by "Jason" or "Keltz".
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Jason.
>>
>>
>
> Yes, that's the way 'finger' works against AD, but you can get 
> virtually the same info with getent, the only things missing are the 
> uptime and last login.
>
> The question has to be, why are you using 'finger' ?


Hi Rowland,

I rarely use the finger command, but many users do use it, and I just 
received a question about that today, so I was investigating.

To my knowledge, getent doesn't allow a user to do a lookup based on a 
first or last name... Does it?

I wonder why finger behaves this way with AD.

Jason.