WYNTK: UNIX System Admininistrator

Don’t believe finger when it tells you when someone last logged in.

If you finger a user who isn’t currently logged in, finger tells you when last he or she was logged in. Theoretically, this would come in useful when you want to know if someone came in over the weekend. If it worked, that is.

% finger donna
Login name: donna In real life: Donna Woonteiler
Directory: /home/donna Shell: /bin/csh
Last login Wed Aug 11, 1993 on ttyp2 from rock.west.ora.co
New mail received Thu Oct 20 12:57:37 1994;
  unread since Sat Jun 11 10:39:17 1994
No Plan.

Here’s the rub: this information may be very wrong. If people use xterm windows, then the information on when they last logged in may not be properly registered with the system. So actually, the information in the above example is completely wrong. Donna was logged in as recently as June 1994, but the last login remembered by UNIX was one in August 1993 when she logged in via a terminal connection.

You can change your finger information

The chfn command can be used to change your “finger information”—that is, the name that appears in your “In real life” field when someone fingers you.