.rhosts vs. hosts.equiv

[a.e.mossberg]

In <TsNiV1w163w at wvus.wciu.edu> pete at wvus.wciu.edu (Pete Gregory) writes:

>Could someone please describe for me the differences between what $HOME/.rhosts
>and /etc/hosts.equiv do for me, with regards to ftp, telnet, rlogin, resh
>access from one system to another?

/etc/hosts.equiv is global, i.e. for all users (except root) It is
	typically used when you have several machines that have the same
	users, but for whatever reason you don't use yellow pages.

$HOME/.rhosts is for an inidividual user, who may have accounts on
	several machines not covered by a global /etc/hosts.equiv

/.rhosts is for the root only

All .rhosts must be unreadable/unwritable by group and others, and owned
by the specific user.

The .rhosts and hosts.equiv files specify other machines/users and
machines (respectively) which can login *from* other systems.

.rhosts and hosts.equiv files *only* cover standard UNIX utilities
rlogin and rsh. Telnet and ftp (which are TCP/IP clients not specific to
any operating system) do not use them. Ftp does have it's own mechanism
for specifying logins *to* other systems, but does so in an unsecure way
which should not be used (cleartext passwords in a users $HOME/.netrc
file).

aem

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aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu .......................................................
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