WebFinger is a new protocol for mapping email addresses to public profile information. Despite being named after the classic finger protocol, there isn’t a version of the Unix finger command that supports the WebFinger protocol. So to fill this gap, I’ve cobbled together wfinger – the traditional finger command with WebFinger support.

• Binary: wfinger.zip (Mac OS X 10.6 Universal Binary)

• Demo CGI Gateway:
  

  Or: curl http://wfinger.habilis.net/user@example.com

• Source Code: wfinger repository (compiles on Mac OS X and Debian Linux)

Example (using web-fingerling Blaine Cook):

% ./wfinger romeda@gmail.com

[gmail.com - web finger]

Account: romeda@gmail.com               Name: Blaine Cook
Organization: BT                        Title: Sociotechnologist
Email:                                  Phone:
Address: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/romeda
OpenID: http://www.google.com/profiles/romeda

Links:
        Twitter: http://twitter.com/blaine
           Blog: http://blog.romeda.org/
    del.icio.us: http://delicious.com/lattice
           Yelp: http://blaine.yelp.com
         Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lattice/
            tel: http://tel:447595925264

Latest Tweet:
   #blogtalk2010 finished, really lots of fun. Thanks to @johnbreslin
   and everyone else here for a great event. :-D

The WebFinger-based output of wfinger is mainly fields extracted from the user’s profile using the hCard micro-format. To add some color, wfinger will also display the user’s latest tweet, if a Twitter account is detected. When WebFinger information can’t be found, wfinger falls back to using the traditional finger code/protocol. Thus, it still works with those who have keep the finger-protocol flame alive throughout the dark ages, like bzs and alexis at The World and Panix.

I also added code to look for a new “https://habilis.net/hfinger” relationship in account XRDs. The “hfinger” stand for HTTP Finger, and hfinger URLs should point to HTTP finger gateways that return text/plain finger output. This allows fingerd-like output to be tunneled via WebFinger resource discovery. You can see this in action by wfingering my account (chuck@habilis.net). This will be useful for people who just want traditional finger output, but are on systems that don’t allow port 79 access.

I hope wfinger will generate some interest in the WebFinger protocol amongst the command-linerati and grumpy grey-beard sysadmins, who run the internet. Share and Enjoy!