NAME
rexec, rexecaf - return stream to a remote command SYNOPSIS
#define BSDSOURCE /* See featuretestmacros(7) */
#include
int rexec(char **ahost, int inport, char *user, char *passwd, char *cmd, int *fd2p); int rexecaf(char **ahost, int inport, char *user, char *passwd, char *cmd, int *fd2p, safamilyt af); DESCRIPTION This interface is obsoleted by rcmd(3). The rexec() function looks up the host *ahost using gethostbyname(3), returning -1 if the host does not exist. Otherwise *ahost is set to the standard name of the host. If a username and password are both specified, then these are used to authenticate to the foreign host; otherwise the environment and then the user's .netrc file in his home directory are searched for appropriate information. If all this fails, the user is prompted for the information.
The port inport specifies which well-known DARPA Internet port to use for the connection; the call getservbyname("exec", "tcp") (see getser‐ vent(3)) will return a pointer to a structure that contains the neces‐ sary port. The protocol for connection is described in detail in rex‐ ecd(8). If the connection succeeds, a socket in the Internet domain of type SOCKSTREAM is returned to the caller, and given to the remote command as stdin and stdout. If fd2p is nonzero, then an auxiliary channel to a control process will be setup, and a descriptor for it will be placed in *fd2p. The control process will return diagnostic output from the command (unit 2) on this channel, and will also accept bytes on this channel as being UNIX signal numbers, to be forwarded to the process group of the command. The diagnostic information returned does not include remote authorization failure, as the secondary connection is set up after authorization has been verified. If fd2p is 0, then the stderr (unit 2 of the remote command) will be made the same as the std‐ out and no provision is made for sending arbitrary signals to the remote process, although you may be able to get its attention by using
out-of-band data. rexecaf() The rexec() function works over IPv4 (AFINET). By contrast, the rexecaf() function provides an extra argument, af, that allows the caller to select the protocol. This argument can be specified as AFINET, AFINET6, or AFUNSPEC (to allow the implementation to select the protocol). VERSIONS The rexecaf() function was added to glibc in version 2.2. ATTRIBUTES For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7). ┌────────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐ │Interface │ Attribute │ Value │ ├────────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│rexec(), rexecaf() │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe │ └────────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘ CONFORMING TO
These functions are not in POSIX.1-2001. The rexec() function first appeared in 4.2BSD, and is present on the BSDs, Solaris, and many other systems. The rexecaf() function is more recent, and less widespread. BUGS The rexec() function sends the unencrypted password across the network. The underlying service is considered a big security hole and therefore not enabled on many sites; see rexecd(8) for explanations. SEE ALSO rcmd(3), rexecd(8) COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.53 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 2013-07-04 REXEC(3)