NAME

finger − user information lookup program

SYNOPSIS

finger [ options ] name ... 

DESCRIPTION

By default finger 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 finger whenever a list of people’s 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 following:  user’s home directory and login shell; any plan which the person has placed in the file .plan in his or her home directory; and the project on which the user is working, from the file .project also in the home directory. 

The letter f is a valid abbreviation for this longer version of finger. 

OPTIONS

−l Forces long output format. 

−m Matches arguments only on user name. 

−p Suppresses printing of the .plan files

−s Forces short output format. 

FILES

/etc/utmpwho file
/etc/passwdfor users names, offices, ... 
/usr/adm/lastloglast login times
~/.planplans
~/.projectprojects

SEE ALSO

chfn(1), w(1), who(1)

BUGS

Only the first line of the .project file is printed. 

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-” prepended. 

There is no way to pass arguments to the remote machine as finger uses an internet standard port. 

A user information data base is in the works and will radically alter the way the information that finger uses is stored.  Finger will require extensive modification when this is implemented. 

4th Berkeley Distribution  —  May 10, 1986