Setting Up Identd

Last updated: March 28, 1998

Identd is the server that helps to properly identify you on your (or someone else's) Linux workstation. As far as I know, you need some sort of identification to log on to Efnet IRC servers. If you have one already installed, then you probably don't need to worry about this, but if you have a "~" appearing before your username on IRC, read on.

The first step to installing this is to download the archive. The archive can be found at SunSITE. Download that and extract it to your /usr/local/src/ directory using tar -zxvf identd-masquerade.tgz. By the way, that's the file you're supposed to download.

I'll spare you the reading and also spare myself some writing. Read the INSTALL file that came with the archive; it's in the identd directory that's been extracted. Okay, if you don't have it, here it is. The following is not my intellectual property; it belongs to the authors of identd.

To build the "identd" daemon, do the following steps:

1. Type "make" and watch it build nicely (hopefully).

2. As "root", type "make install". This will copy the executable
   daemon "identd" into the destination directory as specified in
   the Makefile (normally /etc) and the man page into the specified
   man directory (normally /usr/man/man8).

3. Edit /etc/services to contain a line "ident 113/tcp auth".

4. Edit the file /etc/inetd.conf to contain a line:
     ident     stream  tcp  nowait  nobody   /etc/identd    identd

5. Restart the "inetd" daemon. (Can normally be done with a "SIGHUP" signal).

6. All done.

There's only one file that you need to compile, and that's identd.c. When you do all that the INSTALL file tells you to do, edit /etc/services. Make sure the line that starts with auth is either deleted or commented out, or else this won't work. After doing that, edit /etc/inetd.conf and do the same thing. In /etc/inetd.conf the identification protocol/servers are at the very bottom, the last entries in the configuration file. After the lines starting with "auth" are either deleted or commented out and you're saved the files, then kill the inetd daemon so that you can restart it for the changes to take effect. Do the following to kill and restart inetd:

#	killall inetd
# 	inetd

... and there you go. You have identd. Try to distinguish identd from inetd, and vice versa... I had that problem for a while. :)




Copyright © 1997-1999 Joshua Go (jtg@computers.iwz.com). All rights reserved. Permission to use, distribute, and copy this document is hereby granted. You may modify this document as long as credit to me is given.