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[unix-history] / man / finger.u

.TH FINGER UCB 2/24/79 UCB
.SH NAME
finger  \-  user information lookup program
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B finger
[
.B \-bfhilmpqsw
] login ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Finger
lists the login name, full name, terminal name and write status
(as a '*' before the terminal name if write permission is denied),
idle time, login time, and office location and phone number
(if they are known) for each current UNIX user,
examining the /etc/utmp, /etc/passwd, and /usr/adm/lastlog
files to obtain its information.
.PP
.I Finger
takes control arguments, preceded by a dash, followed by an
optional list of login names.  With no list of login names,
the list of users currently logged on is used.
.PP
.I Finger
has three output modes \- quick, short and long.  In quick mode, data
is only retrieved from /etc/utmp, providing only login name, terminal name,
and login time in a format similar to 
.IR who (1).
In short mode,
.I finger
gives a one line per user output containing login name, full name,
terminal name and write status (a '*' before the terminal
name indicates write permission is denied), idle time (the time since
the user last typed anything meaningful), login time, and office location
and phone number (if the user is logged in on a dialup, her home phone
number is printed instead of office and office phone).
Any items not found are omitted.  The format for the
idle time is minutes, if it is a single integer, hours and minutes if a ':'
is present, or days and hours if a 'd' is present.  Long mode causes
.I finger
to print all the information that short mode gives in a multi-line,
easy to read format.  In addition, it also prints the users home
directory and login shell, and, if a file .plan exists in her home
directory, it is printed in its entirety; if a file .project exits in her
home directory its first line is printed.
.PP
The control arguments to
.I finger
have the following effect:
.TP
.B  \-b
When doing long format output, suppress the printing of the home
directory and shell fields.
.TP
.B  \-f
Suppress the printing of the header line when doing quick or short style
outputs.
.TP
.B  \-h
Suppress the printing of .project files when doing long style outputs.
.TP
.B  \-i
Do a quick style output, but also lookup idle times and terminal status.
.TP
.B  \-l
Force long style format; this option only has effect if no login name list
is given (since it is the default if a list is given).
.TP
.B  \-m
Instead of just comparing the listed names with all login names, the "-m"
option also forces comparison with the user's real names stored in the gecos
field of /etc/passwd.  This allows you, for example, to find all users
that have a first name of ``bill'' or a last name of ``cooper'', for example.
.TP
.B  \-p
Suppress the printing of .plan files when doing long style outputs.
.TP
.B  \-q
Force quick style outputs.
.TP
.B  \-s
Force short style outputs; this option only has effect if a name list is
given (since it is the default if none is given).
.TP
.B  \-w
Decrease the width of short style outputs (by removing the name field) for
narrow displays.
.PP
.I Finger
is smart about a user being logged in more than once, and will do separate
lookups for each terminal on which a user is logged in.
.PP
The only problem with
.I finger
is one of unportability; the source of the information
.I finger
uses is the gecos field of /etc/passwd, which UCB VAX/UNIX
uses for comment information on the user.
.SH FILES
.DT
/etc/utmp		who file
.br
/etc/passwd		for users names, offices, phones, directories and shells
.br
/usr/adm/lastlog	last login times
.br
~/.plan		plans
.br
~/.project		projects
.SH "SEE ALSO"
who(1)
.SH BUGS
/usr/adm/lastlog is a local addition at UCB.  If no equivalent is present
then finger would have to look backwards through /usr/adm/wtmp, which
would be very slow.
.SH AUTHOR
Earl T. Cohen