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FINGER(1) UNIX Reference Manual FINGER(1)
NAME
finger - user information lookup program
SYNOPSIS
finger [-lmsp] [_u_s_e_r ...] [_u_s_e_r@_h_o_s_t ...]
DESCRIPTION
The finger displays information about the system users.
Options are:
-s Finger displays the user's login name, real name, terminal name and
write status (as a ``*'' after the terminal name if write permis-
sion is denied), idle time, login time, office location and office
phone number.
Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and
minutes if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present. Lo-
gin time is displayed as month, day, hours and minutes, unless more
than six months ago, in which case the year is displayed rather
than the hours and minutes.
Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
displayed as single asterisks.
-l Produces a multi-line format displaying all of the information
described for the -s option as well as the user's home directory,
home phone number, login shell, and the contents of the files
``._f_o_r_w_a_r_d'', ``._p_l_a_n'' and ``._p_r_o_j_e_c_t'' from the user's home
directory.
If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is
presented in the form ``hh:mm''. Idle times greater than a day are
presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-
NNN-NNNN''. Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed
as the appropriate subset of that string. Numbers specified as
five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''.
If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(messages
off)'' is appended to the line containing the device name. One en-
try per user is displayed with the -l option; if a user is logged
on multiple times, terminal information is repeated once per login.
-p Prevents the -l option of finger from displaying the contents of
the ``._f_o_r_w_a_r_d'', ``._p_l_a_n'' and ``._p_r_o_j_e_c_t'' files.
-m Prevent matching of _u_s_e_r names. _U_s_e_r is usually a login name; how-
ever, matching will also be done on the users' real names, unless
the -m option is supplied. All name matching performed by finger
is case insensitive.
If no options are specified, finger defaults to the -l style output if
operands are provided, otherwise to the -s style. Note that some fields
may be missing, in either format, if information is not available for
them.
If no arguments are specified, finger will print an entry for each user
currently logged into the system.
Finger may be used to look up users on a remote machine. The format is
to specify a _u_s_e_r as ``user@host'', or ``@host'', where the default out-
put format for the former is the -l style, and the default output format
for the latter is the -s style. The -l option is the only option that
may be passed to a remote machine.
If ``._f_o_r_w_a_r_d'', ``._p_l_a_n'' or ``._p_r_o_j_e_c_t'' is executable by its owner, is
owned by the fingered user, and is not group or world writeable, it will
be executed and its output will be displayed when otherwise itself would
be displayed. The first and only argument to the executable will be the
internet address of the fingerer as far as it is possible to determine.
To find the username of the remote user finger makes use of the authenti-
cation protocol specified by _R_F_C_9_3_1.
SEE ALSO
chpass(1), w(1), who(1), authuser(3),
HISTORY
The finger command appeared in 3.0BSD.
This version was modified to accept executable ``._f_o_r_w_a_r_d'', ``._p_l_a_n''
and ``._p_r_o_j_e_c_t'' files by Carl Edman <cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu>.
4th Berkeley Distribution July 27, 1991 1
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