xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/finger/finger.1 (revision 380a989b3223d455375b4fae70fd0b9bdd43bafb)
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32.\"	@(#)finger.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 5/5/94
33.\"	$Id$
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. If
59.Fl h
60is given, the remote host is printed (the default).  If
61.Fl o
62is given, the office location and office phone number is printed
63instead.
64.Pp
65Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and minutes
66if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present.
67Login time is displayed as the dayname if less than 6 days, else month, day;
68hours and minutes, unless more than six months ago, in which case the year
69is displayed rather than the hours and minutes.
70.Pp
71Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
72displayed as single asterisks.
73.Pp
74.It Fl h
75When used in conjunction with the
76.Fl s
77option, the name of the remote host is displayed instead of the office
78location and office phone.
79.Pp
80.It Fl o
81When used in conjunction with the
82.Fl s
83option, the office location and office phone information is displayed
84instead of the name of the remote host.
85.Pp
86.It Fl l
87Produces a multi-line format displaying all of the information
88described for the
89.Fl s
90option as well as the user's home directory, home phone number, login
91shell, mail status, and the contents of the files
92.Dq Pa .forward ,
93.Dq Pa .plan
94and
95.Dq Pa .project
96from the user's home directory.
97.Pp
98If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is
99presented in the form ``hh:mm''.
100Idle times greater than a day are presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
101.Pp
102Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-NNN-NNNN''.
103Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed as the appropriate
104subset of that string.
105Numbers specified as five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''.
106Numbers specified as four digits are printed as ``xNNNN''.
107.Pp
108If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(messages off)''
109is appended to the line containing the device name.
110One entry per user is displayed with the
111.Fl l
112option; if a user is logged on multiple times, terminal information
113is repeated once per login.
114.Pp
115Mail status is shown as ``No Mail.'' if there is no mail at all, ``Mail
116last read DDD MMM ## HH:MM YYYY (TZ)'' if the person has looked at their
117mailbox since new mail arriving, or ``New mail received ...'', ``Unread
118since ...'' if they have new mail.
119.Pp
120.It Fl p
121Prevents
122the
123.Fl l
124option of
125.Nm finger
126from displaying the contents of the
127.Dq Pa .forward ,
128.Dq Pa .plan
129and
130.Dq Pa .project
131files.
132.It Fl m
133Prevent matching of
134.Ar user
135names.
136.Ar User
137is usually a login name; however, matching will also be done on the
138users' real names, unless the
139.Fl m
140option is supplied.
141All name matching performed by
142.Nm finger
143is case insensitive.
144.Pp
145.It Fl T
146Disable the use of T/TCP (see
147.Xr ttcp 4 ).
148This option is needed to finger hosts with a broken TCP implementation.
149.El
150.Pp
151If no options are specified,
152.Nm finger
153defaults to the
154.Fl l
155style output if operands are provided, otherwise to the
156.Fl s
157style.
158Note that some fields may be missing, in either format, if information
159is not available for them.
160.Pp
161If no arguments are specified,
162.Nm finger
163will print an entry for each user currently logged into the system.
164.Pp
165.Nm Finger
166may be used to look up users on a remote machine.
167The format is to specify a
168.Ar user
169as
170.Dq Li user@host ,
171or
172.Dq Li @host ,
173where the default output
174format for the former is the
175.Fl l
176style, and the default output format for the latter is the
177.Fl s
178style.
179The
180.Fl l
181option is the only option that may be passed to a remote machine.
182.Pp
183If the file
184.Dq Pa .nofinger
185exists in the user's home directory,
186.Nm finger
187behaves as if the user in question does not exist.
188.Sh ENVIRONMENT
189.Nm Finger
190utilizes the following environment variable, if it exists:
191.Bl -tag -width Fl
192.It Ev FINGER
193This variable may be set with favored options to
194.Nm finger .
195.El
196.Sh FILES
197.Bl -tag -width /var/log/lastlog -compact
198.It Pa /var/log/lastlog
199last login data base
200.El
201.Sh SEE ALSO
202.Xr chpass 1 ,
203.Xr w 1 ,
204.Xr who 1 ,
205.Xr ttcp 4 .
206.Rs
207.%A D. Zimmerman
208.%T The Finger User Information Protocol
209.%R RFC 1288
210.%D December, 1991
211.Re
212.Sh HISTORY
213The
214.Nm finger
215command appeared in
216.Bx 3.0 .
217.Sh BUGS
218The current FINGER protocol RFC requires that the client keep the connection
219fully open until the server closes.  This prevents the use of the optimal
220three-packet T/TCP exchange.  (Servers which depend on this requirement are
221bogus but have nonetheless been observed in the Internet at large.)
222