[IDENT] is a simple protocol by which a server can request the username (or a cookie uniquely identifying a local user) associated with a client machine's [TCP] connection. It uses [Port] 113 and is sometimes also called AUTH.
The [IDENT] protocol was intended to report abuse in times when users generally only had unprivileged accounts on a centrally administrated host. It has become useless now that everyone is their own [PC]'s administrator. It also doesn't transverse [NAT] very well due to port rewriting which makes it hard to tell which host the [IDENT] request is addressed to. Therefore it is mostly deprecated now, even though it is still in use on many [IRC] networks.
Upcoming