xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/finger/finger.1 (revision 56c13d2e)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)finger.1	6.12 (Berkeley) 03/14/91
7.\"
8.Vx
9.Vx
10.Dd
11.Dt FINGER 1
12.Os BSD 4
13.Sh NAME
14.Nm finger
15.Nd user information lookup program
16.Sh SYNOPSIS
17.Nm finger
18.Op Fl lmsp
19.Ob
20.Ar user
21.Op \&@host
22\&...
23.Oe
24.Sh DESCRIPTION
25The
26.Nm finger
27command has two basic output formats providing essentially the same
28information.
29.Pp
30Options are:
31.Tw Ds
32.Tp Fl s
33.Nm Finger
34displays the user's login name, real name, terminal name and write
35status (as a ``*'' after the terminal name if write permission is
36denied), idle time, login time, office location and office phone
37number.
38.Pp
39Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and minutes
40if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present.
41Login time is displayed as month, day, hours and minutes, unless
42more than six months ago, in which case the year is displayed rather
43than the hours and minutes.
44.Pp
45Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
46displayed as single asterisks.
47.Pp
48.Tp Fl l
49Produces a multi-line format displaying all of the information
50described for the
51.Fl s
52option as well as the user's home directory, home phone number, login
53shell, and the contents of the files
54.Dq Pa .plan
55and
56.Dq Pa .project
57from the user's home directory.
58.Pp
59If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is
60presented in the form ``hh:mm''.
61Idle times greater than a day are presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
62.Pp
63Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-NNN-NNNN''.
64Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed as the appropriate
65subset of that string.
66Numbers specified as five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''.
67.Pp
68If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(messages off)''
69is appended to the line containing the device name.
70One entry per user is displayed with the
71.Fl l
72option; if a user is logged on multiple times, terminal information
73is repeated once per login.
74.Pp
75.Tp Fl p
76Prevents
77the
78.Fl l
79option of
80.Nm finger
81from displaying the contents of the
82.Dq Pa .plan
83and
84.Dq Pa .project
85files.
86.Pp
87Note that some fields may be missing, in either format, if information
88is not available for them.
89.Tp Fl m
90Prevent matching of
91.Ar user
92names.
93.Ar User
94is usually a login name; however, matching will also be done on the
95users' real names, unless the
96.Fl m
97option is supplied.
98All name matching performed by
99.Nm finger
100is case insensitive.
101.Tp
102.Pp
103If no options are specified,
104.Nm finger
105defaults to the
106.Fl l
107style output if operands are provided, otherwise to the
108.Fl s
109style.
110.Pp
111If no arguments are specified,
112.Nm finger
113will print an entry for each user currently logged into the system.
114.Pp
115.Nm Finger
116may be used to look up users on a remote machine.
117The format is to specify a
118.Ar user
119as
120.Dq Li user@host ,
121or
122.Dq Li @host ,
123where the default output
124format for the former is the
125.Fl l
126style, and the default output format for the latter is the
127.Fl s
128style.
129The
130.Fl l
131option is the only option that may be passed to a remote machine.
132.Sh SEE ALSO
133.Xr chpass 1 ,
134.Xr w 1 ,
135.Xr who 1 ,
136.Xr getpwent 3
137.Sh HISTORY
138.Nm Finger
139appeared in 3 BSD.
140