For sites with many hosts, a single host may be designated as the finger server host. This host collects information about who is logged on to other hosts at that site. If a user at site A wants to know about users logged on at site B, only the server host need be queried, instead of each host at that site.

The Name/Finger Protocol (FINGER) is an application-level Internet protocol that provides an interface between the finger command and the fingerd daemon. The fingerd daemon returns information about the users currently logged in to a specified remote host.

You use finger to find out information about other users on your network, seeing if they are logged in or if they have received mail. host displays address information about a system on your network, giving you a system's IP and domain name addresses.

The finger command displays a M- before each converted character. When you specify users with the User parameter, you can specify either the user's first name, last name, or account name. When you specify users, the finger command, at the specified host, returns information about those users only in long format.