by Charles Iliya Krempeaux

The finger-protocol is a simple, friendly, human-oriented & human-legible protocol, that has its origins in the early 1970s.

Although some of the usage of the finger-protocol was similar to a directory-service for humans — it evolved into one of the early Internet-based social networks. It was not uncommon for people to publish personal information, contact information, referencs to that person's presence on other parts of the Internet, a short biography, a journal, articles, jokes, (so called) ASCII art, and more, via the finger-protocol.

One should note that online social networks existed on other pre-Internet networks. So, while the finger-protocol wasn't the first online social network — it is important because of just how important the Internet became.

The finger-protocol was created and evolved over time, by the software developers who created the finger-client software, and the finger-server software (as well as the user who chose to use or not use a particular implementation). Later on — at least 6 years after the finger-protocol was first created, IETF RFC-742 was published, in an attempt to describe the pre-existing finger-protocol. I.e., IETF RDC-742 did not create a new protocol, but instead just tried to document and describe what was created by software developers outside of the IETF. 14 years later after RFC-742 was published, and at least 20 years after the finger-protocol first existed and was evolving — RFC-1288 was published in an attempt to remove some of (what some perceived as) the ambiguity of RFC-742, to make it easier for both people who would implement a finger-protocol client or server, and to provide some guidance. However RFC-1288 added restrictions to the finger-protocol that did NOT exist in RFC-742. In 1991 some of these restrictions may have seemed reasonable, however today (in 2022) some of the restrictions probably do not make as much sense (and should probably be reconsidered). This document is in part an attempt to reconsider one of these restrictions that RFC-1288 introduced but which didn't exist in RFC-742 — in particular, how to handle a switch other than the "/W" switch.

This document is an updated specification for a finger-protocol request

Using the same style of notation as IETF RFC-1288, here is an updated specification for a finger-query:

        {Q1}    ::= [{W}|{W}{S}{U}]{C}

        {Q2}    ::= [{W}{S}][{U}]{H}{C}

        {U}     ::= username

        {H}     ::= @hostname | @hostname{H}

        {W}     ::= /switchname

        {S}     ::= <SP> | <SP>{S}

        {C}     ::= <CRLF>

The change is the definition of {W}.

In IETF RFC-1288 it was:

        {W}     ::= /W

In this document, it has been updated to:

        {W}     ::= /switchname

What this means is that — instead of the finger-protocol just having this switch:

/W

The finger-protocol can have any of these types of switches too:

/PUSH
/PULL
/LIST
/PICK
/banana
/path/to/something.ext
/once
/once/twice
/once/twice/thrice
/once/twice/thrice/fource

Given a finger-request —

For example —

"/PULL [email protected]\r\n"

One can tell if a finger-request has a switch by looking at the first character of the finger-request.

If it is a "/" character (i.e., a solidus character), then the finger-request has a switch. Else if it isn't a "/" character (i.e., a solidus character), then the finger-request doesn't have a switch.

All the characters following the "/" character (i.e., the solidus character) up to, but not including a space character or (if there is not space character) a terminaling "\r\n" (i.e., <CRLF>), is part of the switchname.

So, for example, with out example finger-request —

"/PULL [email protected]\r\n"     

The switchname is "PULL".

Here are a number of example finger-requests where we specify what the switchname is

/PUSH
# switchname = "PUSH"

/PULL
# switchname = "PULL"

/LIST
# switchname = "LIST"

/PICK
# switchname = "PICK"

/banana
# switchname = "banana"

/path/to/something.ext
# switchname = "path/to/something.ext"

/once
# switchname = "once"

/once/twice
# switchname = "once/twice"

/once/twice/thrice
# switchname = "once/twice/thrice"

/once/twice/thrice/fource
# switchname = "once/twice/thrice/fource"