rexec(SLIB)                    6 January 1993                    rexec(SLIB)


 Name

    rexec - return stream to a remote command

 Syntax


    rexec (ahost, inport, user, passwd, cmd, fd2p)
    char **ahost;
    unsigned short inport;
    char *user, *passwd, *cmd;
    int *fd2p;


 Description

    rexec looks up the host *ahost using gethostbyname(SLIB), returning -1 if
    the host does not exist.  Otherwise *ahost is set to the standard name of
    the host.  If a user name and password are both specified, 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 informa-
    tion.

    The port inport specifies which well-known Internet port to use for the
    connection; it will normally be the value returned from the call
    getservbyname(exec, tcp) (see getservent(SLIB)).  The protocol for con-
    nection is described in rexecd(ADMN).

    If the call succeeds, a socket of type SOCKSTREAM is returned to the
    caller, and given to the remote command as stdin and stdout.  If fd2p is
    non-zero, an auxiliary channel to a control process will be set up, 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 signal numbers, to be
    forwarded to the process group of the command.  If fd2p is 0, the stderr
    (unit 2 of the remote command) will be made the same as the stdout 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.

 Notes

    There is no way to specify options to the socket call which rexec makes.

 See also

    gethostbyname(SSC), rcmd(SLIB) and rexecd(ADMN).