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28 .\" @(#)finger.1 8.3 (Berkeley) 5/5/94
29 .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/finger/finger.1,v 1.9.2.12 2003/02/25 20:31:18 trhodes Exp $
30 .\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/finger/finger.1,v 1.4 2004/09/03 19:13:23 dillon Exp $
37 .Nd user information lookup program
42 .Op Ar user@host ...\&
46 utility displays information about the system users.
49 .Bl -tag -width indent
53 to use IPv4 addresses only.
57 to use IPv6 addresses only.
59 Pass through 8-bit data. This option is intended for enabling 8-bit
62 service. Using this from the command line is
64 as the output data may include control characters for your terminal.
66 Display the user's login name, real name, terminal name and write
67 status (as a ``*'' before the terminal name if write permission is
68 denied), idle time, login time, and either office location and office
69 phone number, or the remote host.
72 is given, the office location and office phone number is printed
76 is given, the remote host is printed instead.
78 Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and minutes
79 if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present.
82 the login time indicates the time of last login.
83 Login time is displayed as the day name if less than 6 days, else month, day;
84 hours and minutes, unless more than six months ago, in which case the year
85 is displayed rather than the hours and minutes.
87 Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
88 displayed as single asterisks.
90 When used in conjunction with the
92 option, the name of the remote host is displayed instead of the office
93 location and office phone.
95 When used in conjunction with the
97 option, the office location and office phone information is displayed
98 instead of the name of the remote host.
100 This option restricts the gecos output to only the users' real
102 It also has the side-effect of restricting the output
103 of the remote host when used in conjunction with the
107 Produce a multi-line format displaying all of the information
110 option as well as the user's home directory, home phone number, login
111 shell, mail status, and the contents of the files
117 from the user's home directory.
119 If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is
120 presented in the form ``hh:mm''.
121 Idle times greater than a day are presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
123 Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-NNN-NNNN''.
124 Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed as the appropriate
125 subset of that string.
126 Numbers specified as five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''.
127 Numbers specified as four digits are printed as ``xNNNN''.
129 If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(messages off)''
130 is appended to the line containing the device name.
131 One entry per user is displayed with the
133 option; if a user is logged on multiple times, terminal information
134 is repeated once per login.
136 Mail status is shown as ``No Mail.'' if there is no mail at all, ``Mail
137 last read DDD MMM ## HH:MM YYYY (TZ)'' if the person has looked at their
138 mailbox since new mail arriving, or ``New mail received ...'', ``Unread
139 since ...'' if they have new mail.
146 from displaying the contents of the
158 is usually a login name; however, matching will also be done on the
159 users' real names, unless the
162 All name matching performed by
166 Disable the piggybacking of data on the initial connection request.
167 This option is needed to finger hosts with a broken TCP implementation.
170 If no options are specified,
174 style output if operands are provided, otherwise to the
177 Note that some fields may be missing, in either format, if information
178 is not available for them.
180 If no arguments are specified,
182 will print an entry for each user currently logged into the system.
186 utility may be used to look up users on a remote machine.
187 The format is to specify a
193 where the default output
194 format for the former is the
196 style, and the default output format for the latter is the
201 option is the only option that may be passed to a remote machine.
205 exists in the user's home directory,
207 behaves as if the user in question does not exist.
211 configuration file can be used to specify aliases.
216 aliases will work for both local and network queries.
220 utility utilizes the following environment variable, if it exists:
223 This variable may be set with favored options to
227 .Bl -tag -width /var/log/lastlog -compact
228 .It Pa /etc/finger.conf
229 alias definition data base
230 .It Pa /var/log/lastlog
241 .%T The Finger User Information Protocol
251 The current FINGER protocol RFC requires that the client keep the connection
252 fully open until the server closes.
253 This prevents the use of the optimal
254 three-packet T/TCP exchange.
255 (Servers which depend on this requirement are
256 bogus but have nonetheless been observed in the Internet at large.)