xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/finger/finger.1 (revision 23f282aa31e9b6fceacd449020e936e98d6f2298)
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32.\"	@(#)finger.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 5/5/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd August 1, 1997
36.Dt FINGER 1
37.Os BSD 4
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm finger
40.Nd user information lookup program
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm finger
43.Op Fl lmpshoT
44.Op Ar user ...
45.Op Ar user@host ...
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Nm finger
49displays information about the system users.
50.Pp
51Options are:
52.Bl -tag -width flag
53.It Fl s
54.Nm Finger
55displays the user's login name, real name, terminal name and write
56status (as a ``*'' before the terminal name if write permission is
57denied), idle time, login time, and either office location and office
58phone number, or the remote host.
59If
60.Fl h
61is given, the remote host is printed (the default).  If
62.Fl o
63is given, the office location and office phone number is printed
64instead.
65.Pp
66Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and minutes
67if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present.
68Login time is displayed as the dayname if less than 6 days, else month, day;
69hours and minutes, unless more than six months ago, in which case the year
70is displayed rather than the hours and minutes.
71.Pp
72Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
73displayed as single asterisks.
74.Pp
75.It Fl h
76When used in conjunction with the
77.Fl s
78option, the name of the remote host is displayed instead of the office
79location and office phone.
80.Pp
81.It Fl o
82When used in conjunction with the
83.Fl s
84option, the office location and office phone information is displayed
85instead of the name of the remote host.
86.Pp
87.It Fl l
88Produces a multi-line format displaying all of the information
89described for the
90.Fl s
91option as well as the user's home directory, home phone number, login
92shell, mail status, and the contents of the files
93.Dq Pa .forward ,
94.Dq Pa .plan
95and
96.Dq Pa .project
97from the user's home directory.
98.Pp
99If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is
100presented in the form ``hh:mm''.
101Idle times greater than a day are presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
102.Pp
103Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-NNN-NNNN''.
104Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed as the appropriate
105subset of that string.
106Numbers specified as five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''.
107Numbers specified as four digits are printed as ``xNNNN''.
108.Pp
109If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(messages off)''
110is appended to the line containing the device name.
111One entry per user is displayed with the
112.Fl l
113option; if a user is logged on multiple times, terminal information
114is repeated once per login.
115.Pp
116Mail status is shown as ``No Mail.'' if there is no mail at all, ``Mail
117last read DDD MMM ## HH:MM YYYY (TZ)'' if the person has looked at their
118mailbox since new mail arriving, or ``New mail received ...'', ``Unread
119since ...'' if they have new mail.
120.Pp
121.It Fl p
122Prevents
123the
124.Fl l
125option of
126.Nm finger
127from displaying the contents of the
128.Dq Pa .forward ,
129.Dq Pa .plan
130and
131.Dq Pa .project
132files.
133.It Fl m
134Prevent matching of
135.Ar user
136names.
137.Ar User
138is usually a login name; however, matching will also be done on the
139users' real names, unless the
140.Fl m
141option is supplied.
142All name matching performed by
143.Nm finger
144is case insensitive.
145.Pp
146.It Fl T
147Disable the use of T/TCP (see
148.Xr ttcp 4 ).
149This option is needed to finger hosts with a broken TCP implementation.
150.El
151.Pp
152If no options are specified,
153.Nm finger
154defaults to the
155.Fl l
156style output if operands are provided, otherwise to the
157.Fl s
158style.
159Note that some fields may be missing, in either format, if information
160is not available for them.
161.Pp
162If no arguments are specified,
163.Nm finger
164will print an entry for each user currently logged into the system.
165.Pp
166.Nm Finger
167may be used to look up users on a remote machine.
168The format is to specify a
169.Ar user
170as
171.Dq Li user@host ,
172or
173.Dq Li @host ,
174where the default output
175format for the former is the
176.Fl l
177style, and the default output format for the latter is the
178.Fl s
179style.
180The
181.Fl l
182option is the only option that may be passed to a remote machine.
183.Pp
184If the file
185.Dq Pa .nofinger
186exists in the user's home directory,
187.Nm finger
188behaves as if the user in question does not exist.
189.Sh ENVIRONMENT
190.Nm Finger
191utilizes the following environment variable, if it exists:
192.Bl -tag -width Fl
193.It Ev FINGER
194This variable may be set with favored options to
195.Nm finger .
196.El
197.Sh FILES
198.Bl -tag -width /var/log/lastlog -compact
199.It Pa /var/log/lastlog
200last login data base
201.El
202.Sh SEE ALSO
203.Xr chpass 1 ,
204.Xr w 1 ,
205.Xr who 1 ,
206.Xr ttcp 4 .
207.Rs
208.%A D. Zimmerman
209.%T The Finger User Information Protocol
210.%R RFC 1288
211.%D December, 1991
212.Re
213.Sh HISTORY
214The
215.Nm finger
216command appeared in
217.Bx 3.0 .
218.Sh BUGS
219The current FINGER protocol RFC requires that the client keep the connection
220fully open until the server closes.  This prevents the use of the optimal
221three-packet T/TCP exchange.  (Servers which depend on this requirement are
222bogus but have nonetheless been observed in the Internet at large.)
223