Find and display user information.
The finger command is used to find and display user information. It can be used for users on both local and remote hosts, and account names are case-insensitive. When executed without arguments, finger displays login information for all users currently on the local host, including account name, real name, login terminal, idle time, login time, and office location/phone number if available.
finger (options) (parameters)
-l: List the user's account name, real name, home directory, login shell, login time, mail status, and the contents of the .plan and .project files.
-m: Exclude searching by the user's real name.
-s: List the user's account name, real name, login terminal, idle time, login time, and office location/phone number.
-p: List the user's account name, real name, home directory, login shell, login time, and mail status, but omit the contents of the .plan and .project files.
If no options are specified and a username is provided, the default output style is -l. Otherwise, it defaults to -s. Note that in either format, some fields may be missing if the information is unavailable. If no parameters are specified, finger prints an entry for each user currently logged in.
Username: Specifies the user whose information is to be queried.
Using finger on the local machine:
[root@localhost root]# finger
Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone
root root tty1 2 Dec 18 13:00
root root pts/0 1 Dec 18 13:05
root root *pts/1 Dec 18 13:10
To query user information on a remote machine, use the format username@hostname. Note that the remote host must be running a finger daemon (fingerd) to support this.