REXEC(3X)
NAME
rexec − return stream to a remote command
USAGE
rem = rexec(ahost, inport, user, passwd, cmd, fd2p);
char **ahost;
u_short inport;
char *user, *passwd, *cmd;
int *fd2p;
DESCRIPTION
Rexec looks up the host *ahost using gethostbyname(3N), 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 the user’s 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; it will normally be the value returned from the call “getservbyname(“exec”, “tcp”)” (see getservent(3N)). The protocol for connection is described in detail in rexecd(8).
If the call succeeds, a socket of type SOCK_STREAM is returned to the caller, and given to the remote command as stdin and stdout. If fd2p is non-zero, then a 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 UNIX signal numbers, to be forwarded to the process group of the command. If fd2p is zero, then 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 that rexec makes.