On Unix-like operating systems, the finger command looks up and displays information about system users.

Syntax

finger [-lmsp] [user …] [user@host …]

Options

If no options are specified, finger defaults to the -l style output if operands are provided, otherwise to the -s style. Note that some fields may be missing, in either format, if information is not available for them.

  • Syntax
  • Files
  • Examples
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If no arguments are specified, finger prints an entry for each user currently logged in to the system.

Finger canlook up users on a remote machine. The format is to specify a user as “[email protected]”, or “@host”, where the default output format for the former is the -l style, and the default output format for the latter is the -s style. The -l option is the only option passed to a remote machine.

If standard output is a socket, finger will emit a carriage return (^M) before every linefeed (^J). This format is for processing remote finger requests when invoked by fingerd, the finger daemon.

Files

Examples

finger -p ch

Display information about the user ch. Output appears similar to the following:

Login name: admin In real life: Computer Hope On since Feb 11 23:37:16 on pts/7 from domain.computerhope.com 28 seconds Idle Time Unread mail since Mon Feb 12 00:22:52 2001

ac — Print statistics about the amount of time users were connected.passwd — Change a user’s password.who — Report which users are logged in to the system.whois — An Internet username directory service.