This is a simple protocol which provides an interface to the Name and Finger programs at several network sites. These programs return a friendly, human-oriented status report on either the system at the moment or a particular person in depth.

The 'finger' command in Linux is a user information lookup program. It provides details about users on a Linux system. You can use it like this: finger [username] .

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.

Finger is a client-server application that allows a user to interact with a finger server or “daemon.” It was originally developed in 1971 to provide a means for users to query remote systems for a list of logged-in users.