Hi, this is Sandra Henry-Stocker, author of the “Unix as a Second Language” blog on NetworkWorld.
In this Linux tip, we’re going to look at the finger command that provides information on the selected user account. Once it’s installed, all you have to do to use the finger command is type “finger” followed by the username of the account you want to check. And the command does not require that you be root or use the sudo command to elevate your privileges.
Here’s an example:
Here’s an example of the command for a user with a plan:
What constitutes a plan? If a user has a file named “.plan” in their home directory, the content of that file would be displayed. Most users these days generally don’t have .plan files.
If you use finger without arguments, you will get a list of currently logged in users along with some of their information.
$ finger
Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone
nemo Nemo Demo pts/1 Jun 4 17:33 (192.168.0.9)
shs Sandra Henry-Stocker *pts/0 Jun 4 16:52 (192.168.0.6)
That’s your Linux tip for the finger command.
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