Reference Manual

NAME

identd - start or stop the IDENT daemon

identd user|off [-u]

Command identd starts or stops an IDENTD daemon that listens at TCP port 113.
Argument user must specify a user name or the special string off. In the latter case, the IDENT daemon will be terminated.

If argument -u is specified, a digit in the range 0..9 will be appended to the user string returned in each response.

The NAT32 IDENT daemon sends a postive response to all requests it receives from a client. The string user has no special significance, as the IDENT protocol is typically used to protect against IP spoofing.

Some system administrators configure Mail Servers, Telnet Servers and others to send an IDENT Request to clients. A client should respond with an IDENT Response, but most Windows systems do not run an IDENT daemon and simply respond with a TCP reset. The server then continues without delay.

However, if the client is running NAT32, its NDIS3PKT driver will suppress the TCP reset emanating from the Microsoft TCP stack because it assumes that NAT32 (or some other application) may well be running an IDENT daemon that might respond to the IDENT Request.

Therefore, when NAT32 is running and no IDENT daemon is running, the server that sent the IDENT Request will wait for 20-30 secs before continuing, thus causing unnecessary delays. If NAT32's IDENT daemon is running, it will respond to the request and the server continues without delay.

When NAT32 starts, it configures the NDIS3PKT driver to suppress TCP resets. This is done with a mux on command executed in file startup. Before it exits, NAT32 reconfigures NDIS3PKT to not suppress TCP resets. This is done with a mux off command executed in file onexit.

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