UNIX For Dummies [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Finding Out Who’s on Other Computers

Network If your machine is on a network, you can use rwho to find out about other machines. We can check nearby systems, by typing this command:

rwho
The computer responds with this output:

abuse xuxa:ttyp4 Sep 22 15:19 6:30
johnl bebel:ttyv0 Sep 22 14:08 99:59
johnl tom:console Sep 3 14:57 99:59
johnl tom:ttyp1 Sep 3 14:57 6:15
johnl tom:ttyp2 Sep 3 14:57 27:42
johnl tom:ttyp3 Sep 4 17:48 99:59
johnl tom:ttyp4 Sep 18 10:48 1:57
johnl tom:ttyp5 Sep 26 18:42 1:21
johnl tom:ttyp7 Sep 9 14:10 1:19
johnl xuxa:console Sep 22 09:29 27:54
johnl xuxa:ttyp0 Sep 22 01:54 2:32
johnl xuxa:ttyp6 Sep 24 14:23 1:32
The finger command is set up to work over the net, and if you’re on the Internet, you can — in principle — finger any machine on the Internet. Because no rule says that machines must answer when you call, however, in most cases you get a "connection refused" response or even no response.

Some systems, particularly main network machines at universities, have set up finger to return user-directory information. Suppose that you ask who’s at MIT:

finger @mit.edu

You get an introduction to the MIT online directory:

[mit.edu]
Student data loaded as of Dec 15, Staff data loaded as of Dec 19. Notify the Registrar or Personnel as appropriate to change your information.
Our on-line help system describes
How to change data, how the directory works, where to get more info.
For a listing of help topics, enter finger help@mit.edu. Try finger help_about@mit.edu to read about how the directory works. Please see help_url@mit.edu for questions about the new URL field.

You can try to finger a particular individual at MIT, too:

finger chomsky@mit.edu

Now you can see the public data about that individual:

[mit.edu]
... There was 1 match to your request. name: Chomsky, Noam A
email: CHOMSKY@MIT.EDU
phone: (617) 555-7819
address: ZZZ-219
department: Linguistics & Philos
title: Linguistics, Institute Professor
alias: N-chomsky