.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\" @(#)finger.1 6.3 (Berkeley) %G%
finger \- user information lookup program
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.
(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.)
A longer format also exists and is used by
whenever a list of peoples names is given. (Account names as well as
first and last names of users are accepted.)
This format is multi-line, and includes all the information described above
as well as the user's home
directory and login shell, any plan which the person has placed in the file
directory, and the project on which they are working from the file
also in the home directory.
may be used to lookup users on a remote machine. The format is to specify
the user as ``user@host.'' If the user name is left off, the
standard format listing is provided on the remote machine.
Match arguments only on user name.
Force long output format.
Force short output format.
/etc/passwd for users names, offices, ...
/usr/adm/lastlog last login times
Only the first line of the
The encoding of the gcos field is UCB dependent \- it knows that an office
`197MC' is `197M Cory Hall', and that `529BE' is `529B Evans Hall'.
It also knows that a four digit office phone number should have a ``x2-''
There is no way to pass arguments to the remote machine as
uses an internet standard port.
A user information data base is in the works and will radically alter
the way the information that
uses is stored. Finger will require extensive modification when