1w(1) User Commands w(1)
2
6 w - display information about currently logged-in users
7
9 w [-hlsuw] [user]
10
13 The w command displays a summary of the current activity on the system,
14 including what each user is doing. The heading line shows the current
15 time, the length of time the system has been up, the number of users
16 logged into the system, and the average number of jobs in the run queue
17 over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
18 The fields displayed are: the user's login name, the name of the tty
21 the user is on, the time of day the user logged on (in hours:minutes),
22 the idle time—that is, the number of minutes since the user last typed
23 anything (in hours:minutes), the CPU time used by all processes and
24 their children on that terminal (in minutes:seconds), the CPU time used
25 by the currently active processes (in minutes:seconds), and the name
26 and arguments of the current process.
27
29 The following options are supported:
30 -h Suppresses the heading.
32 -l Produces a long form of output, which is the default.
35 -s Produces a short form of output. In the short form, the tty is
38 abbreviated, the login time and CPU times are left off, as are
39 the arguments to commands.
40 -u Produces the heading line which shows the current time, the
43 length of time the system has been up, the number of users logged
44 into the system, and the average number of jobs in the run queue
45 over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
46 -w Produces a long form of output, which is also the same as the
49 default.
50
53 user Name of a particular user for whom login information is dis‐
54 played. If specified, output is restricted to that user.
55
58 Example 1 Sample Output From the w Command
59 example% w
61 10:54am up 27 day(s), 57 mins, 1 user, load average: 0.28, 0.26, 0.22
64 User tty login@ idle JCPU PCPU what
65 ralph console 7:10am 1 10:05 4:31 w
66
70 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
71 that affect the execution of w: LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and LC_TIME.
72
74 /var/adm/utmpx user and accounting information
75
78 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
79 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
84 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
85 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
86 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
87 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
88
90 ps(1), who(1), whodo(1M), utmpx(4), attributes(5), environ(5)
91
93 The notion of the "current process" is unclear. The current algorithm
94 is "the highest numbered process on the terminal that is not ignoring
95 interrupts, or, if there is none, the highest numbered process on the
96 terminal". This fails, for example, in critical sections of programs
97 like the shell and editor, or when faulty programs running in the back‐
98 ground fork and fail to ignore interrupts. In cases where no process
99 can be found, w prints −.
100 The CPU time is only an estimate, in particular, if someone leaves a
103 background process running after logging out, the person currently on
104 that terminal is ``charged'' with the time.
105 Background processes are not shown, even though they account for much
108 of the load on the system.
109 Sometimes processes, typically those in the background, are printed
112 with null or garbaged arguments. In these cases, the name of the com‐
113 mand is printed in parentheses.
114 w does not know about the conventions for detecting background jobs. It
117 will sometimes find a background job instead of the right one.
118SunOS 5.11 19 Mar 2004 w(1)