How to use the finger command in Linux

Knowing who is using your Linux or Unix-like system is a fundamental part of managing it.. Pointing at someone can be considered rude, but use your finger can still be enlightening.

the finger the command is almost certainly not installed by default on your Linux distribution. It was absent from Ubuntu distributions, Fedora and Manjaro used to research this article. We have already covered the pinky command, which is the light version of finger. pinky is provided by default, but if you want to use fingerYou, yes to install it.

the finger and pinky Commands perform the same type of task. They both tell you some information about currently logged in users on your Linux or Unix-like operating system. The information sets each provide are slightly different and pinky you have a few more options to phase out the parts you might not want to see.

If you want your Linux setup to be more “similar to Unix” that “similar to Linux”, you may want to use finger. Maybe you have inherited some scripts that expect finger be available. But regardless of the reason, if he is forced to (or just prefer) to use finger, here's how to install and use it.

RELATED: How to use the pinky command in Linux

Finger installation

You can install finger in Ubuntu with this command:

sudo apt-get install finger

Install finger in Fedora, use this command:

sudo dnf install finger

In Manjaro you need to install fingerfrom the Arch. User repository (GOLD), and build it from your source code. There are tools to do this for you, so it is an automated process. That's great, but it means you must have those tools installed on your Manjaro system, as well as a tool to recover and install finger del AUR. So first we will have to install them.

If you don't already have a suitable AUR installer on your system, trizen it's a decent option. This command will install it.

sudo pacman -Syu trizen

Before we can use trizen install finger for us, we need to install some development tools. These are called automatically by the install and build scripts that trizen will call to install finger in your system. Of course, if you have installed AUR items before, or if you do any software development, you probably already have them installed.

We need to install the GNU Library C. We do it with this command:

sudo pacman -Syu glibc

We also need the GNU Binutils. These are used by the gcc compiler:

sudo pacman -Syu binutils

The installation process also uses the patch utility. This command will install it:

sudo pacman -Syu patch

the make The utility is used to control the compile and build from finger from your source code. Install it with this command:

sudo pacman -Syu make

AND, of course, we will not achieve any success in building something from source code without a compiler. We will definitely need gcc, the GNU Compiler Collection. This command will install it for you:

sudo pacman -Syu gcc

And finally, with compilation dependencies met, and trizen installed, we can issue the command to actually install finger.

trizen -S netkit-bsd-finger

As the installation progresses, you will be presented with several questions. Just press “Enter” to accept default values.

Using finger

Typing finger you will need to start by enabling the developer tab by clicking on the dropdown menu “Enter” cause finger to generate your default output.

finger

This shows a single line of information about each of the people who are connected. The columns are:

• Access: The name of the user account of the person who logged in.
• Name: The person's full name, if the system knows it.
• Tty: The type of terminal they are connected to. In general, it will be a pts (a pseudo-teletype). “: 0”Means the physical keyboard and screen connected to the computer.
• Inactive: User downtime. If it is single digit, means minutes. If there are two points, means hours and minutes, and if there is one “d”, means days and hours.
• Login time: The time the person logged in.
• Office: This is a historic hangover. It was used to show the name or number of the room in which the person worked. This is very rare to be set by root nowadays. Instead of, finger will display the IP address of the machine from which the user logged in. “: 0”Means the physical keyboard and screen connected to the computer.
• Office phone: This is another inherited item. If root has not registered a person's office phone number, will show blank.

RELATED: What is a TTY in Linux? (and how to use the tty command)

Use your finger with a user

To view the details of a single person, pass your account name in command line.

finger alec

When the finger works on a single user, provides a longer screen. We get additional information.

• directory: The person's personal directory.
• Shell: The shell they are wearing.
• In, from: The time and date the user logged in, from which tty and which IP address.
• Mail: If they have mail, this is shown. If they have checked their mail recently, the time it was checked is shown. Alec has no mail waiting for him.
• Plan: If the user creates a “.plan” and “.project” file in their home directory, and put some text inside them describing what you are working on, the content of those files will be displayed here. This is a system that is rarely used today.. They tell us Alec has no plans. That is not an accusation against your career strategy, means you haven't bothered to update your file “.plan”.

If we repeat this command, let's take a look at mary, we will see that you have been diligent and have put a descriptive text in your files “.plan” and “.project”.

finger mary

Using finger with real names

You can use the real name of a person with finger . If you can't remember your account name, use your real name.

finger alec tumovit

As an added benefit, you can find out the name of your account.

Skip the .plan and .project files

If you do not want to view file summaries “.plan” and “.project”, use the -p (no plan) option.

finger -p mary

Although Mary has active files “.plan” and “.project”, finger ignores them and does not report their content.

Using the long list option

To view a list of all users on the long-form screen, Use the -l option (long format).

finger -l

This does finger lists all logged in users in long display format.

Raise your pinky or point your finger

As is usually the case, Linux gives you options. You can use pinky , or you can use finger.

The real difference between them is the extra delicacy that pinky has to allow you to be quite granular by removing the data that you are not interested in. AND, of course, is pre-installed.