Ubuntu Manpage: oidentd - TCP/IP IDENT protocol server

NAME

       oidentd - TCP/IP IDENT protocol server

SYNOPSIS

       oidentd [options]

       [ -dehiImoqSv ]
       [ -a <host> ]
       [ -c <charset> ]
       [ -C <config file> ]
       [ -f <port> ]
       [ -p <port> ]
       [ -P <host> ]
       [ -o or --other=[<OS string>] ]
       [ -t or --timeout=<seconds> ]
       [ -g or --group=<group|GID> ]
       [ -l or --limit=<number>]
       [ -r or --reply=<string> ]
       [ -u or --user=<username|UID> ]

DESCRIPTION

       oidentd is a server that implements the TCP/IP standard IDENT user identification protocol
       as specified in the RFC 1413 document.

       oidentd operates by looking up specific TCP connections and returning the user name of the
       process owning the connection.

OPTIONS

-a or --address=<address|hostname>
Listen for connections on the specified address. The default is to listen for
connections on all configured IP addresses.

-c or --charset=<charset>
Use the specified alternate charset.

-C or --config=<config file>
Use the specified file as the configuration file. The default location of the
configuration file is /etc/oidentd.conf.

-d or --debug
Enable debugging. This causes debugging messages to be printed via syslog. This
option can be useful when trying to track down the cause of failed lookups.

-e or --error
Return "UNKNOWN-ERROR" for all errors, so as not to divulge any unnecessary
information to remote clients.

-f or --forward=[<port>]
When IP masquerading support is enabled, forward requests for machines that
masquerade through us to those machines on the specified port. If a port is not
given, oidentd will use the default port for the ident service ("auth" or port
113). If the forwarded request fails, oidentd will fall back to reading the
/etc/oidentd_masq.conf file. In order for forwarding to work, the machine to which
the connection is forwarded must also be running oidentd, and oidentd must be run
with the -P switch specifying the host that is forwarding the connections. If the
ident daemon on the host to which the connection is forwarded is capable of
returning a fixed string for any lookup (for example, the ident server built in to
the mIRC windows IRC client), it is not necessary to run oidentd on that host.

-g or --group=<group|GID>
Run with specified GID or group.

-i or --foreground
Run interactively, not as a daemon. This is useful when debugging, or when running
from a service manager such as daemontools.

-I or --stdio
Service only a single client request then exit. The client is expected to be
already connected via stdin and stdout. This mode is useful when running from
listener utilities such as inetd(8), xinetd(8) or tcpserver(8). This option
implies -i (run in foreground) also.

-l or --limit=<number>
Allow, at most, the specified number of open connections at once.

-m or --masq
Enable support for ident queries for masqueraded/NAT connections. See
oidentd_masq.conf(5) for details on configuring support for masqueraded/NAT
connections.

-o or --other=[<string>]
The string specified will be returned as the OS string by default for all
successful ident lookups. If no argument is given, "OTHER" will be returned instead
of the name of the operating system. Some requests may be interpreted as having
failed by the client side (with ident in general, not just with oidentd), when some
other string is returned instead of the actual name of the operating system.

-p or --port=<port>
Listen on the specified port.

-P or --proxy=<host>
The specified host acts as a proxy, forwarding connections to us. This option must
be enabled when connections on the machine on which oidentd is running are
masqueraded through another host and the host through which the connections are
masqueraded forwards requests to us.

-q or --quiet
Quiet mode; do not log any status messages to syslog.

-S or --nosyslog
Log any status messages to stderr, not syslog. This is useful for debugging or
integration with external loggers such as multilog(8).

-t or --timeout=<seconds>
Sets the number of seconds to wait for input from a client before closing the
connection.

-u or --user=<user|UID>
Run with specified username or UID.

-U or --udb
Perform lookups in the UDB shared memory tables, both for connections originating
on the local host and for masqueraded connections. When a match is found, it will
be used instead of the values supplied by the operating system, for either
masqueraded entries (with the -m flag) or normal TCP connections. Entries in the
table which don't match any local user will be returned verbatim. This allows
oidentd to cooperate with other programs (e.g. RADIUS servers or proxies) to give
valid replies for dynamic connections.

-r or --reply=<string>
Upon a failed lookup, the specified string will be returned to the client as if the
lookup had succeeded.

-v or --version
Display version information and exit.

-h or --help
Display options and exit.

FILES

       /etc/oidentd.conf
              The system-wide configuration file.

       /etc/oidentd_masq.conf
              The NAT/IP masquerading mappings.

       $HOME/.oidentd.conf
              Per-user configuration file.

AUTHOR

       Ryan McCabe <ryan@numb.org>
       http://dev.ojnk.net

BUGS

       Solaris lacks IPv6 support and NAT support.