Tutorial: change your default finger answer

In this tutorial, you will follow alice through the steps she takes to change the message users see when they run finger alice@the-dam.org.

The Dam finger server's default setup is to display the following text for users who have not changed their message yet:

Looks like alice hasn't customized their message yet -probably too busy wrestling with code or avoiding documentation—.

If you're the mysterious user in question and wish to reduce the number of puzzled faces, consider setting up a personal message.

Head over to https://the-dam.org/doc/tutorials/finger.html to learn how to tell the world more than just your username.

It's the perfect place to share your status, like 'Compiling,' 'Still compiling…' or the ever-popular 'Why isn't this compiling?!'.

A well-crafted message could save you from unnecessary interruptions or, at the very least, provide a good laugh.

See https://the-dam.org/doc/reference/finger-servers.html, for a list of known working finger servers, or just finger @the-dam.org to discover other users here.

To customize this default message, alice should edit the /srv/finger/alice file. The finger server runs this file to answer the requests it receives for user alice ; it is an executable script.

alice must now choose among the following mutually exclusive options to replace her default script, in order of increasing complexity:

• display a static message,
• display login information and her .plan file [TO BE WRITTEN],
• use finger for microblogging: display her last tweet from twtxt [TO BE WRITTEN],
• write a complex script with arguments parsing, user data, terminal animations, and software dependencies [TO BE WRITTEN].