There are several commands in MM that give you information about other users. You can locate a userid, in order to address mail, and find out some other information about other users. You may also have access to other campus directory listings, not part of MM.
The MM command finger can be used in several ways. It is the same as the UNIX shell command finger and, like many shell commands, takes a variety of options indicated by use of a minus sign and one or more letters. For full information, see the manual page, by typing man finger at the shell prompt, or !man finger at an MM prompt.
One option is finger -m with a name. This searches for both real names and user ids. Use * for truncation.
MM>finger -m bren*
To verify a user id before mailing to it, use finger by itself followed by the exact user id. The result will show information about the user id, including the name, so you can determine whether it is the person you want. The option -v will show more information.
MM>finger jb51 jb51 Joseph Brennan Last login Aug 1 15:27 from ttyu2 (128.59.33.45) No new mail. MM>
MM>finger -v jb51 Login name: jb51 In real life: Joseph Brennan Office: 612 W 115 S Directory: /f/u1/d09200/jb51 Shell: /bin/ksh Last login Wed Aug 1 15:27 on ttyu2 No new mail. Plan: MM>
You can finger user ids at many other Internet hosts, though not all. Type finger and the domain address. The result may look like one of the above examples or may vary, depending on how the remote host does its finger command. Sometimes you will get a response like unrecognized TCP host, which just means you can't finger to that site.
MM>finger abc@bigvax.trans.edu [bigvax.trans.edu] Login name: abc In real life: Anselm B Cooper Office: 125 West Hall, 1-201-555-5555 Directory: /u3/abc Shell: /bin/tcsh Last login Tue Aug 7 13:07 on ttyd6 Plan:
If you want to see where the local mail system will send mail, use the who command in MM. The command takes into account any mail aliases or forwarding that may be in effect and shows you where the mail will go, similar to the list you see after giving a send command at the S> prompt. In the first example below, the mail just simply goes to the address given; the second and third cases show what happens if there is mail forwarding or a mail alias in effect, since the address shown is somewhere else. If the address points to a mailing list, the whole list will be shown. In the last case, user jb51 has tried a nonexistent address, and sees his own address shown, meaning mail to that address would be returned to him.
MM>who mm33 mm33 MM>who abc6 xyz4 MM>who consultant dcl@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu MM>who foobar foobar... User unknown jb51 MM>
Typing the finger command without a userid or name will show everyone logged in right now. The list can be very long, so you should pipe to more, that is, type finger | more.
The MM finger command is defined by the variable finger-command. You can, if you desire, redefine it to be some other command. Type set finger-command followed by the command desired. For example, you could make MM finger be the same as finger -m, so when you type finger joe in MM, it will do finger -m joe. If you change the command, use the save-init command to save the change.