xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/w/w.1 (revision a5a45b47)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1991 Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)w.1	6.8 (Berkeley) 04/23/91
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt W 1
10.Os BSD 4
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm w
13.Nd "who present users are and what they are doing"
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Nm w
16.Op Fl hi
17.Op Ar user
18.Sh DESCRIPTION
19.Nm W
20prints a summary of the current activity on the system,
21including what each user is doing.
22The heading shows the current time of day, how long the system has been up,
23the number of users logged into the system, and the load averages.
24The load average numbers give the number of jobs in the run queue
25averaged over 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
26.Pp
27The fields output are:
28the user's login name, the name of the terminal (tty) the user is on,
29the host from which the user is logged in, the time the user logged on,
30the time since the user last typed anything,
31the
32.Tn CPU
33time used by all processes and their children on that tty,
34the
35.Tn CPU
36time used by the currently active processes, and the name and arguments
37of the current process.
38.Pp
39Available options are:
40.Bl -tag -width Ds
41.It Fl h
42Suppress the heading.
43.It Fl i
44Output is sorted by idle time.
45.El
46.Pp
47If a
48.Ar user
49name is given, the output is restricted to that user.
50.Sh FILES
51.Bl -tag -width /var/run/utmp -compact
52.It Pa /var/run/utmp
53list of users on the system
54.El
55.Sh SEE ALSO
56.Xr who 1 ,
57.Xr finger 1 ,
58.Xr ps 1
59.Sh BUGS
60The notion of the
61.Dq current process
62is muddy.
63The current algorithm is ``the highest numbered process on the terminal that
64is not ignoring interrupts, or, if there is none, the highest numbered
65process on the terminal''.
66This fails, for example, in critical sections of programs like the shell
67and editor, or when faulty programs running in the background fork and fail
68to ignore interrupts.
69(In cases where no process can be found,
70.Nm w
71prints
72.Dq \- . )
73.Pp
74The
75.Tn CPU
76time is only an estimate, in particular, if someone leaves a
77background process running after logging out, the person currently
78on that terminal is
79.Dq charged
80with the time.
81.Pp
82Background processes are not shown, even though they account for
83much of the load on the system.
84.Pp
85Sometimes processes, typically those in the background, are
86printed with null or garbaged arguments.
87In these cases, the name of the command is printed in parentheses.
88.Pp
89.Nm W
90does not know about the new conventions for detection of background jobs.
91It will sometimes find a background job instead of the right one.
92.Sh COMPATIBILITY
93The
94.Fl f ,
95.Fl l ,
96.Fl s ,
97and
98.Fl w
99flags are no longer supported.
100.Sh HISTORY
101The
102.Nm
103command appeared in
104.Ux 3.0 .
105