Using the network

Access privileges

On a network with machines belonging to several different groups of people, care must be taken to:

control who has access to a machine through the network.
make access to a remote machine convenient for those with access privileges.

For system-wide control, the system administrator can create entries in the /etc/hosts.equiv file to establish who has network access to a particular machine. By placing in this file the name of another machine on the network, the system administrator establishes system equivalence. When another (remote) machine has system equivalence with your local machine, you can log in from your account on the local machine to your account on the remote machine without entering a password. See the hosts.equiv(SFF) manual page for more information.

You, as an individual user, can control who has access through the network to your account by using the User Equivalence Manager to add user equivalence. If the system administrators have not established system equivalence between two machines on which you have accounts, you can use this manager to create your own user equivalence between your accounts on the two machines. You can also create user equivalence to your account for any other user.

System or user equivalence applies only to the rlogin, rcp, and rcmd commands. With rlogin, if no equivalence is established, it prompts for a user name and password; if equivalence exists, rlogin skips this step. You cannot use the rcp and rcmd commands unless system or user equivalence exists.