Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online

4.22. How do I use Netfind?

It works best for sites that do not insulate themselves from the outside world. Some sites, for privacy or security reasons, do not allow offsite users to finger their computers or access other information. Although this may be best for the company, it hinders Netfind, which uses this information, when it can, during its search.

Netfind can be used either as a client program running on your local computer or accessed by Telneting to one of several public servers. The public servers don't require the Netfind software to be on your local host, so we'll look at that venue for searching.

To use Netfind, Telnet to bruno.cs.colorado.edu (or another Netfind server, listed in following text), armed with the names to search for and their places of business or schools. At the login prompt, type netfind. Most servers are limited to a certain number of searches at any given time, so you may be denied access. If so, try again later or choose a different server.

Netfind displays a menu of selections. For searching for a specific person, enter 2 (search). You'll then be asked to enter person and keys. Enter one word for the name followed by one or more words defining where to look. For instance, entering simon san diego state university will check for San Diego State in Netfind's "seed database." If it has something to go on, it will begin checking domain names for the keys. If not, try a less restrictive key (in this case, just san diego). Next is a search for hosts. Netfind uses several remote services, including the finger command and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (STMP) to query each computer that might have an account name, in this case Simon. (A more complete explanation of this process is available in Netfind's online help.)

If Netfind finds too many machines that match your keys, it will list them and ask you to choose up to three.

If a match is made, Netfind gives you as much information as it can about the match. If there is no match, or it can't get access to information from a secure site, you are told why.

Example:

$ telnet bruno.cs.colorado.edu
Trying 128.138.243.150...
Connected to bruno.cs.colorado.edu.
Escape character is '^]'.

SunOS UNIX (bruno)

Login as `netfind' to access netfind server

login: netfind

=====================================================
Welcome to the University of Colorado Netfind server.
=====================================================
Top level choices:
        1. Help
        2. Search
        3. Seed database lookup
        4. Options
        5. Quit (exit server)
--> 2
Enter person and keys (blank to exit) --> savetz a2i
Searching rahul.net
( 1) SMTP_Finger_Search: checking domain rahul.net
SYSTEM: rahul.net
        Login: waffle                           Name: Kevin Savetz
        Directory: /files/home/waffle           Shell: /local/bin/tcsh
        Mail last read Fri May 13 20:27:22 1994
        On since Fri May 13 19:43 (PDT) on ttyp8

        Freelance computer journalist.

        Publisher of the Internet Services Frequently Asked Questions
List.
        Publisher of the Unofficial Internet Book List.
        Publisher of the Internet Fax FAQ.
           All of these documents are available via e-mail. For info, send
mail
           To: savetz@rahul.net            Subject: send help

        Author, "Your Internet Consultant - the FAQs of Life Online"
(Sams
        Publishing to be released June 1994.)

Table of Contents | Previous Section | Next Section