Finger
From Support
Finger is a program for finding out basic information about users. It is mainly used to check if a user is logged in, and to check how long they have been idle.
Contents |
Usage
To finger someone, simply type finger username. For example, finger inky will show something like this:
Login: inky Name: (name) Directory: /home/inky Shell: /bin/bash On since Wed Jun 7 19:03 (IST) on pts/xx from ----- 11 hours 8 minutes idle Last login Thu Jun 8 23:30 (IST) on pts/xx from ----- No mail. Plan: Eat all the cookies
The output tells when the user last logged in, and how long they have been idle for if they are currently logged in. This information is very useful if you want to talk to someone (e.g. using hey), as you can use it to determine whether they will see the message or not.
.plan
Another interesting feature of finger is the Plan. If a user has a .plan file in their home directory, the contents of the file will be printed under the "Plan:" header whenever someone fingers that user.
To edit your .plan file, type nano ~/.plan. This file can be used to contain useful information, but more often than not it is used purely for humour.
If a user has a .project file in their home directory, this will also be printed in finger as "Project:"; however, only the first line of the file will be read.