[ntp:questions] Re: Coded messages on US govt timeserver's nonstandard port

Steve Kostecke kostecke at ntp.isc.org
Wed Apr 6 02:09:58 UTC 2005


On 2005-04-05, Moe Trin <ibuprofin at painkiller.example.tld> wrote:
> In article <slrnd554qn.loh.kostecke at stasis.kostecke.net>, Steve Kostecke wrote:
>
>>On 2005-04-05, Marc Brett <marc at fordson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> This had me going for a while, but it turns out it's just a
>>> server status report via the finger(1) command.
>
>>>     % telnet time.nist.gov 78
>
>>finger uses port 79 ...
>
> By default, yes.  But that doesn't mean someone can't configure a
> finger server on some other port.

True. But the original example does not follow the finger protocol. In a
finger server conversation the client has to provide the username. For
our example we'll finger root:

steve:~$ telnet localhost 79
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
root
There is no such user.
Connection closed by foreign host.
steve:~$

The original example is similar to daytime in that merely connecting to
the port results in a reply:

steve:~$ telnet localhost 13
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
Tue Apr  5 22:05:27 2005
Connection closed by foreign host.
steve:~$

-- 
Steve Kostecke <kostecke at ntp.isc.org>
NTP Public Services Project - http://ntp.isc.org/



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