NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILES | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON
HOSTS.EQUIV(5) Linux Programmer's Manual HOSTS.EQUIV(5)
/etc/hosts.equiv - list of hosts and users that are granted "trusted" r com-
mand access to your system
The hosts.equiv file allows or denies hosts and users to use the r-commands
(e.g., rlogin, rsh or rcp) without supplying a password.
The file uses the following format:
[ + | - ] [hostname] [username]
The hostname is the name of a host which is logically equivalent to the local
host. Users logged into that host are allowed to access like-named user
accounts on the local host without supplying a password. The hostname may be
(optionally) preceded by a plus (+) sign. If the plus sign is used alone it
allows any host to access your system. You can explicitly deny access to a
host by preceding the hostname by a minus (-) sign. Users from that host must
always supply a password. For security reasons you should always use the FQDN
of the hostname and not the short hostname.
The username entry grants a specific user access to all user accounts (except
root) without supplying a password. That means the user is NOT restricted to
like-named accounts. The username may be (optionally) preceded by a plus (+)
sign. You can also explicitly deny access to a specific user by preceding the
username with a minus (-) sign. This says that the user is not trusted no
matter what other entries for that host exist.
Netgroups can be specified by preceding the netgroup by an @ sign.
Be extremely careful when using the plus (+) sign. A simple typographical
error could result in a standalone plus sign. A standalone plus sign is a
wildcard character that means "any host"!
/etc/hosts.equiv
Some systems will only honor the contents of this file when it has owner root
and no write permission for anybody else. Some exceptionally paranoid systems
even require that there be no other hard links to the file.
Modern systems use the Pluggable Authentication Modules library (PAM). With
PAM a standalone plus sign is only considered a wildcard character which means
"any host" when the word promiscuous is added to the auth component line in
your PAM file for the particular service (e.g., rlogin).
rhosts(5), rlogind(8), rshd(8)
This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2003-08-24 HOSTS.EQUIV(5)