Unix Third Edition: Visual Quickstart Guide

Learning Who Else is Logged in with w

Another way to find out about other people logged into the Unix system is to use w, which tells you who is logged in, what they’re doing, and a few other details (Code Listing 7.11).

To find out who is logged in with w:

• w

  At the shell prompt, type w. You’ll usually see output much like that in Code Listing 7.11. The top line shows

  • The time

  • System uptime in days, hours, and minutes (uptime is how long it’s been since the system was restarted and is usually measured in weeks or months for Unix systems, as opposed to hours or days for personal computers).

  • The number of users

  • System load averages (the numbers indicate jobs—programs or scripts to execute—lined up to run in the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes)

Code Listing ...