ident and irc question

[Etherphyte]

What is ident? When ever I use irc, i see the message ident not found or something, then it says, failed to find hostname. how do i get ident working, and how do i make it so when i am on irc, user command shows user
@etherphyte.com instead of my ip address?
Thanks,
Ad

[mstich]

To use identd you have to uncomment the line in your /etc/inetd.conf file that says
auth stream tcp wait nobody /usr/sbin/in.identd in.identd -P/dev/null

[ 11 February 2001: Message edited by: mstich ]

[Craig McPherson]

Ident is a service you run on your computer that lets remote systems contact your computer and ask what your username on that computer is.

Your computer connects to an IRC server on its port 6667. The connection comes from your system's port 32122, for example -- the port you connect from is random. The IRC server then connects to your system on the ident port (512, I think), and asks "What's the username of the person who's contacting me from port 32122 on your machine?" The ident server on your computer then responds with a text string.