NAME

w − lists users and current activity

SYNOPSIS

w [ options ] [ user ]

DESCRIPTION

W prints a summary of the current activity on the system, including what each user is doing.  The heading line shows the current time of day, length of time the system has been up, number of users logged into the system, and the load averages.  The load average numbers give the number of jobs in the run queue averaged over 1, 5 and 15 minutes. 

The fields output are as follows: the user’s login name; the name of the tty the user is on; the time of day the user logged on; the number of minutes since the user last typed anything; the CPU time used by all processes and their children on that terminal; the CPU time used by the currently active processes; the name and arguments of the current process. 

OPTIONS

−h Suppresses the heading. 

−l Gives the long output, which is the default. 

−s Gives a short form of output.  In the short form, the tty is abbreviated, and the login time and CPU times are omitted, as are the arguments to commands. 

If a user name is included, the output will be restricted to that user. 

FILES

/etc/utmp
/dev/kmem
/dev/drum

SEE ALSO

who(1), finger(1), ps(1)

BUGS

The notion of the “current process” is vague.  The current algorithm is “the highest numbered process on the terminal that is not ignoring interrupts, or, if there is none, the highest numbered process on the terminal.” This fails, for example, in critical sections of programs like the shell and editor, or when faulty programs running in the background fork and fail to ignore interrupts.  (When no process can be found, w prints  − .) 

The CPU time is only an estimate.  In particular, if someone leaves a background process running after logging out, the user currently on that terminal is “charged” with the time. 

Background processes are not shown, even though they account for much of the load on the system. 

Sometimes processes, typically those in the background, are printed with null or incorrect arguments.  In such cases, the name of the command is printed in parentheses. 

W does not handle the new conventions for detection of background jobs.  It will sometimes find a background job instead of the right one. 

4th Berkeley Distribution  —  1 August 1985