authd

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
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NAME

authd - Authentication Server daemon  

SYNTAX

authd [ -ACHUVW ]  

DESCRIPTION

authd is a simple daemon implementing the RFC 931 Authentication Server protocol. It should be invoked by a network server, such as attachport(1), for connections to TCP port 113.

The client host gives authd two numbers separated by a comma. authd interprets the numbers as TCP port numbers for the local and remote sides respectively of a TCP connection between this host and the client host. It returns a line of the form localport, remoteport: USERID: UNIX: username where username is the name of the user on this side of the specified connection. If authd does not have an authentication entry for that connection, it returns a line of the form localport, remoteport: ERROR: UNKNOWN-ERROR.

Options ACHUVW print the authorship notice, copyright notice, help notice, short usage summary, version number, and warranty information respectively.

 

DIAGNOSTICS

None.
 

MACHINES

authd has been tested on an Astronautics ZS-2 running ZSUnix, a Sun 3 running SunOS, a Sun 4 running SunOS, a Convex C-210 running Convex UNIX, and several other machines.  

FILES

/usr/etc/auth/tcp/*  

BUGS

None known.  

RESTRICTIONS

authd does not require kernel support; it must be supported on the user level by authtcp and attachport. If those programs are not used, authd is useless.

The author feels quite confident in predicting that the first problems people have with authd will be on multihomed hosts. Programmers be warned: It takes some effort to correctly use authd on a multihomed host!  

VERSION

authd version 2.1, dated April 18, 1990.  

AUTHOR

Copyright 1990, Daniel J. Bernstein.  

REFERENCES

The authentication server is more secure than passwords in some ways, but less secure than passwords in many ways. (It's certainly better than no password at all---e.g., for mail or news.) It is not the final solution. For an excellent discussion of security problems within the TCP/IP protocol suite, see Steve Bellovin's article ``Security Problems in the TCP/IP Protocol Suite.''  

SEE ALSO

authtcp(1), attachport(1), authuser(3), tcp(4), inetd(8)


 

Index

NAME
SYNTAX
DESCRIPTION
DIAGNOSTICS
MACHINES
FILES
BUGS
RESTRICTIONS
VERSION
AUTHOR
REFERENCES
SEE ALSO

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Time: 21:50:07 GMT, February 02, 2023