w(1)                     USER COMMANDS                       w(1)



NAME
     w - who is logged in, and what are they doing

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/ucb/w [ -hls ] [ user ]

DESCRIPTION
     The w command displays a summary of the current activity  on
     the  system, including what each user is doing.  The heading
     line shows the current time of day, how long the system  has
     been  up,  and  the  number of users logged into the system.
     The fields displayed are: the users login name, the name  of
     the  tty  the user is on, the time of day the user logged on
     (in hours:minutes), the idle time-that  is,  the  number  of
     minutes   since   the   user   last   typed   anything   (in
     hours:minutes), the CPU time used by all processes and their
     children on that terminal (in minutes:seconds), the CPU time
     used by the currently active processes (in minutes:seconds),
     the  name  and  arguments of the current process.  If a user
     name is included, output is restricted to  that  user.   The
     following options are available:

     -h   Suppress the heading.

     -l   Produce a long form of output, which is the default.

     -s   Produce a short form of output.  In the short form, the
          tty  is  abbreviated,  the login time and CPU times are
          left off, as are the arguments to commands.

EXAMPLE
     w
     7:36am  up 6 days, 16:45,  1 users
     User tty  login@    idle JCPU PCPU what
     ralph     console   7:10am       1 10:05     4:31 w

FILES
     /var/adm/utmp
     /dev/kmem
     /dev/drum

SEE ALSO
     ps(1), who(1) in the User's Reference Manual.
     utmp(4), whodo(1M) in the System  Administrator's  Reference
     Manual.

NOTES
     The notion of the ``current process'' is muddy.  The current
     algorithm  is  `the highest numbered process on the terminal
     that is not ignoring interrupts, or, if there is  none,  the
     highest  numbered process on the terminal'.  This fails, for
     example, in critical sections of programs like the shell and



             Last change: BSD Compatibility Package             1

w(1)                     USER COMMANDS                       w(1)



     editor,  or  when  faulty programs running in the background
     fork and fail to ignore interrupts.  In cases where no  pro-
     cess  can  be  found,  w  prints -.  The CPU time is only an
     estimate, in particular, if someone leaves a background pro-
     cess running after logging out, the person currently on that
     terminal is ``charged'' with the time.  Background processes
     are not shown, even though they account for much of the load
     on the system.  Sometimes processes, typically those in  the
     background, are printed with null or garbaged arguments.  In
     these  cases,  the  name  of  the  command  is  printed   in
     parentheses.   w  does  not  know  about the conventions for
     detecting background jobs.  It will sometimes find  a  back-
     ground job instead of the right one.










































             Last change: BSD Compatibility Package             2