lampman@heurikon.UUCP (Ray Lampman) (11/11/87)
Why does hosts.equiv exist? And what is its purpose? I have read all (read sparse) available documentation on hosts.equiv and related files and commands. I believe its purpose is closely tied to the execution of 'rlogin', although, I have not been able to deduce its exact use. Any information would be appreciated. My environment is Unix System V.0. - Ray (lampman@heurikon.UUCP)
chris@mccoy (Chris Ott) (11/12/87)
Ray Lampman writes: >Why does hosts.equiv exist? And what is its purpose? I have read all (read >sparse) available documentation on hosts.equiv and related files and commands. >I believe its purpose is closely tied to the execution of 'rlogin', although, >I have not been able to deduce its exact use. Any information would be >appreciated. My environment is Unix System V.0. Ray, "/etc/hosts.equiv" tells rsh, rcp, and rlogin which computers have users equivalent to the local machine. For instance, my "/etc/hosts.equiv" file looks like this: scotty kirk spock mccoy sulu If this "/etc/hosts.equiv" file is on machine "kirk", "kirk" will allow a user from "scotty", "kirk", "spock", "mccoy", or "sulu" to rlogin without a password. This assumes, of course, that a user account of the same name as the person using "rlogin" exists on "kirk". "rcp" and "rsh" don't work at all unless the machine name is in the "/etc/hosts.equiv" file. There is also a way to set it up so that only certain users from those machines are allowed to log in without a password, or use "rcp" or "rsh", but I don't know what it is off the top of my head. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Ott Computer-Aided Engr. Lab Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: University of Arizona A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. Internet: chris@spock.ame.arizona.edu UUCP: {allegra,cmcl2,hao!noao}!arizona!amethyst!spock!chris -------------------------------------------------------------------------------