finger output contains the following information on a specified user: Username, full name, program, idle time, biff/hunger state, tty name, write permission, and terminal location. If a user who is not logged in is specified the time and host of last login are displayed, along with the user's plan and mail file status.
The arguments accepted by finger can be one of: a user name, a personal name (first or last) from the password file or inquire database, a switch (starting with - or /), a terminal specification (+tty0d and +0d both mean the user on /dev/tty0d, +tty0 matches /dev/tty0*), a period (specifies the user on the stdin terminal) or a remote specification user@host.
You can use the finger command alone to list everyone currently logged into your host or use the command with a username as argument to list a specific person's finger information. Some examples:
world% finger -User- --Full name-- Idle TTY -Console Location- 3ps . 3rd Planet Software 1 q12 redline.aimtech (X display 0) Bane . r98 annex2 (Virtual Terminal) Judi . Judi Chamberlin r36 annex1 (Virtual Terminal) LarryLar . Lauren A Schreiner q58 annex1 (Virtual Terminal) Lundberg . Rick Lundberg 11 r74 annex1 (Virtual Terminal) MAJ00001 . Marshall A Jespersen r73 annex2 (Virtual Terminal) MarySue . Mary Suzanne r91 annex2 (Virtual Terminal) Qpid . Qpid r47 192.32.97.13 (Virtual Terminal) RAID7 . John OBrien r24 annex4 (Virtual Terminal) RickG . Rick Giguere q94 annex1 (Virtual Terminal) Tox . R. S. Y. Buchanan r1 annex1 (Virtual Terminal) ahanson . adam hanson .s3 annex2 (Virtual Terminal) akt . Alan K Thompson q90 dilbert.nist.gov (Virtual Terminal) aldo . Aldo Castaneda 33 q5 blue (Virtual Terminal) ...
To review information on a person who happens to not be logged in, you might see output similar to the following:
world% finger bzs
bzs Barry Shein Login Wed 5-Jul-95 1:50PM from world
bzs has new mail as of Fri 7-Jul-95 9:07AM
last read Fri 7-Jul-95 4:04AM
Plan: (last modified Mon 24-Apr-95 1:01AM)
To put it all on-line
Running finger on a person who is currently logged in will display output similar to the following:
world% finger freduser
-User- --Full name-- Idle TTY -Console Location-
freduser . Fred User 12 r79*ncd1:0; The Attendant is in ...
18 r81*ncd1:0; Information Booth
18 r61*diti; On Duty
19 q7 ares; On the Job
6 r55*ncd1:0; Here and Now
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