GNU inetutils - The GNU Networking Utilities

GNU Networking Utilities (Inetutils) are the traditional network clients, servers and utilities. Included are ftp, hostname, ifconfig, inetd, logger, ping, rsh, rlogin, talk, telnet, tftp, syslogd, traceroute, whois, and dnsdomainname.

Send bug reports to bug-inetutils@gnu.org.

Licensing

GNU Inetutils is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.0 or later - see the file COPYING.

The manual (see doc/) is under the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 or later, see doc/fdl-1.3.texi.

Other files are licensed as indicated in each file. There may be exceptions to these general rules, see each file for precise information.

For any copyright year range specified as YYYY-ZZZZ in this package note that the range specifies every single year in that closed interval.

Building

See the file INSTALL for generic installation instructions.

The file paths contains a list of all paths used by programs in this distribution, and rules to find values for them. To change a path PATH_FOO, you may either tell configure, by using --with-path-foo=VALUE (where VALUE may contain references to make variables such as $(bindir)), or edit the paths file. See further below for some important cases.

If you wish to build only the clients or only the servers, you may wish to use the --disable-servers or --disable-clients options when invoking configure. You can also use --enable-<program> or --disable-<program> to control whether to build individual programs; if you explicitly specify whether to build a program, that will override the values specified by --disable-clients or --disable-servers.

History

The individual utilities were originally derived from the 4.4BSDLite2 distribution. Many features were integrated from NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and GNU/Linux.

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Testing

Some words on testing are in order. The three tests ftp-localhost, ping, and traceroute, all need to be run by root. Several tests will depend on infrastructure files in /etc/, but most tests will complain about their obvious needs. Anyway, these dependencies are important whenever chrooted builds are conducted.

At the time of running a test, the shell variables TEST_IPV4 and TEST_IPV6 are influential. Regard them as taking one of three values: yes, no, or auto. When assigned the value auto, a small check at runtime will determine if the corresponding address family is available, and accordingly include it during test. The values yes, and no, include or exclude the corresponding address family unconditionally.

During configuration time, TEST_IPV# is essentially set to auto, except that -enable-ipv# assigns yes, and --disable-ipv# assigns no unconditionally. Note however, that --disable-ipv6 retains its property of removing all support for IPv6 in every executable, while --disable-ipv4 only affects the testing target check and scripts.

During chrooted tests, the runtime check for either family can be fooled, so setting TEST_IPV6=yes might be necessary. On the other hand, chrooting similar to a FreeBSD jail, normally changes the address of localhost, so similar environments will need counteractions like TARGET=10.0.6.1.

Whois

The GNU whois client reads a whois-servers file to figure out which whois server to use. It won't always pick the best server; whois.internic.net seems to know something about nic.ddn.mil, but the GNU whois client will use nic.ddn.mil to look up nic.ddn.mil if you use the configuration file we supply. Our configuration file probably also does not have a complete list of whois servers; feel free to send information about additional whois servers to the bug reporting address.

Notes on setuid-executables:

• All of the r* client commands, rcp, rlogin, rsh, used to need to be installed as setuid root to work correctly, since they use privileged ports for communication. However, some modern operating systems now offer capabilities that avoid the need for setuid settings, and this is accounted for in our present code. CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE and PRIV_NET_PRIVADDR are relevant for the above three programs.

• Similarly, ping, ping6, and traceroute, used to depend on setuid installation, but also these are now content with capabilities like CAP_NET_RAW, PRIV_NET_ICMPACCESS, and PRIV_NET_RAWACCESS.

Notes on hard-coded file locations

• Some of the buildable executables depend critically on hard-coded file locations for correct execution. The most important, where care is needed, are highlighted below.

• ftpd needs access to several configuration files, in order that all use cases be covered. Both of PATH_FTPCHROOT and PATH_FTPWELCOME are normally positioned correctly in sysconfdir by default, whereas PATH_FTPUSERS usually is desired to state /etc/ftpusers, but not all systems manage this. Particular care should be given to PATH_FTPLOGINMESG, since it defaults to /etc/motd, which cannot be claimed as universally ideal. A sensible counter measure could be

  ./configure --with-path-ftploginmesg=$(sysconfdir)/ftpmotd

  This would, however, complicate matter for chrooted users, so a minor variation on the default could be preferable:

  ./configure --with-path-ftploginmesg=/etc/ftpmotd

  Finally, the fall-back value /etc/nologin for PATH_NOLOGIN is in effect for every systems lacking <paths.h>, but this sets the most plausible location in any case.

• rcp relies on PATH_RSH for proper hand-over. Use the configuration switch --with-path-rsh=VALUE for overriding the detected value. It should point to the intended location of rsh, particularly when built with Kerberos support.

• Similarly, rsh needs PATH_RLOGIN to locate rlogin for correct delegation. The switch --with-path-rlogin=VALUE may come handy to ensure that rsh as well as rlogin offer identical Kerberos support.

Some known deficiencies:

• Non-Shishi Kerberos support does not build. Patches welcome.

• Shishi Kerberos support is only implemented for rcp, rlogin, rlogind, rsh, rshd, telnet, and telnetd.

• Not all utilities are Kerberized even when built with Kerberos libraries, including rcp for non-Shishi Kerberos.

• InetUtils does not build on HP-UX 11.00, Cygwin, Minix, MinGW, MSCV, BeOS, Haiki (and probably other systems as well). Patches welcome.

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