W(1) COMMAND REFERENCE W(1) NAME w - who is on and what they are doing SYNOPSIS w [ -h ] [ -s ] [ -u ] [ user ] DESCRIPTION The w command prints a summary of the current activity on the system, including what each user is doing. Here is a sample of the output: 11:48am up 14:38, 3 users, load average: 0.09, 0.37, 1.03 User tty login@ idle JCPU PCPU what root console 7:11am 9 3:50 5 -sh chris tty03 8:36am 2 6:50 1:10 cc main.c terry tty05 8:28am 4:37 27 vi calendar The first line gives the current time of day, how long the system has been up, the number of users logged into the system, and the load averages. The load average numbers give the number of jobs in the run queue averaged over one, five, and fifteen minutes. The second line gives the field headings: the user's login name, the name of the tty the user is on, the time of day the user logged on, the number of minutes since the user last typed anything, the CPU time used by all processes and their children on that tty, the CPU time used by the currently active processes, and the name and arguments of the current process. OPTIONS -h The printing of the first two lines (load average and heading) is suppressed. -s The output is printed in short form. The tty is abbreviated; login time, CPU times, and arguments to commands are omitted. -u Only the first line (load average) is printed. user The output is restricted to the specified user. FILES /etc/utmp Accounting file. /dev/cvt Table of kernel symbols. /dev/kmem Image of kernel memory. /dev/mem Image of physical memory. Printed 4/6/89 1
W(1) COMMAND REFERENCE W(1) /dev/drum Image of swap space. DIAGNOSTICS Can't read kernel symbols The w command could not read kernel symbols from /dev/cvt (see cvt(4)). No kmem The w command could not open /dev/kmem for reading. No drum The w command could not open /dev/drum for reading. No mem The w command could not open /dev/mem for reading. RETURN VALUE [NO_ERRS] Command completed without error. [USAGE] Incorrect command line syntax. Execution terminated. [NP_ERR] An error occurred that was not a system error. Execution terminated. CAVEATS 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 editor, or when faulty programs running in the background fork and fail to ignore interrupts. (In cases where no process can be found, w prints a dash (-).) The CPU time is only an estimate; in particular, if someone leaves a background process 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. The w command does not know about the new conventions for detection of background jobs; it will sometimes find another background job instead of the right one. Printed 4/6/89 2
W(1) COMMAND REFERENCE W(1) Things can change while w is running; the picture it gives is only a close approximation of reality. For instance, w may produce false error messages if it cannot find a particular file or if a data structure it is looking at changes underneath it. SEE ALSO who(1), finger(1n), ps(1), uptime(1), and cvt(4). Printed 4/6/89 3
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