last(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FILES | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

LAST(1)                  General Commands Manual                 LAST(1)

NAME         top

       last - list logins on the system

SYNOPSIS         top

       last   [ -num | -n num | --lines num ]
              [ -f filename | --file filename ]
              [ people ...  ] [ ttys ...  ]
              [ --complain ] [ --no-truncate-ftp-entries ]
              [ -x | --more-records ] [ -a | --all-records ]
              [ --tw-leniency num ] [ --tw-suspicious num ]
              [ -i | --ip-address ] [ --debug ] [ -w | --wide ]
              [ -s | --print-seconds ] [ -y | --print-year ]
              [ -V | --version ] [ -h | --help ]

DESCRIPTION         top

       last looks through the file wtmp (which records all
       logins/logouts) and prints information about connect times of
       users. Records are printed from most recent to least recent.
       Records can be specified by tty and username.  tty names can be
       abbreviated:
                                    last 0
       is equivalent to
                                  last tty0.

       Multiple arguments can be specified:
                               last root console
       will print all of the entries for the user root and all entries
       logged in on the console tty.

       The special users reboot and shutdown log in when the system
       reboots or (surprise) shuts down.
                                  last reboot
       will produce a record of reboot times.

       If last is interrupted by a quit signal, it prints out how far
       its search in the wtmp file had reached and then quits.

OPTIONS         top

       -n num, --lines num
              Limit the number of lines that last outputs.  This is
              different from u*x last, which lets you specify the number
              right after a dash.
       -f filename, --file filename
              Read from the file filename instead of the system's wtmp
              file.
       --complain
              When the wtmp file has a problem (a time-warp, missing
              record, or whatever), print out an appropriate error.
       --tw-leniency num
              Set the time warp leniency to num seconds.  Records in
              wtmp files might be slightly out of order (most notably
              when two logins occur within a one-second period - the
              second one gets written first).  By default, this value is
              set to 60.  If the program notices this problem, time is
              not assigned to users unless the --timewarps flag is used.
       --tw-suspicious num
              Set the time warp suspicious value to num seconds.  If two
              records in the wtmp file are farther than this number of
              seconds apart, there is a problem with the wtmp file (or
              your machine hasn't been used in a year).  If the program
              notices this problem, time is not assigned to users unless
              the --timewarps flag is used.
       --no-truncate-ftp-entries
              When printing out the information, don't chop the number
              part off of `ftp'XXXX entries.
       -x, --more-records
              Print out run level changes, shutdowns, and time changes
              in addition to the normal records.
       -a, --all-records
              Print out all records in the wtmp file.
       -i, --ip-address
              Some machines store the IP address of a connection in a
              utmp record.  Enabling this option makes last print the IP
              address instead of the hostname.
       -w, --wide
              By default, last tries to print each entry within in 80
              columns.  Use this option to instruct last to print out
              the fields in the wtmp file with full field widths.
       --debug
              Print verbose internal information.
       -s, --print-seconds
              Print seconds when displaying dates.
       -y, --print-year
              Print year when displaying dates.
       -V, --version
              Print last's version number.
       -h, --help
              Prints the usage string and default locations of system
              files to standard output and exits.

FILES         top

       wtmp
              The system wide login record file. See wtmp(5) for further
              details.

AUTHOR         top

       The GNU accounting utilities were written by Noel Cragg
       <noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu>. The man page was added by Dirk
       Eddelbuettel <edd@qed.econ.queensu.ca>.

SEE ALSO         top

       who(1), wtmp(5)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the psacct (process accounting utilities)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/acct/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/acct/⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the tarball acct-6.6.4.tar.gz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/acct/⟩ on 2023-12-22.  If you discover
       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in
       this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

                             1997 August 19                      LAST(1)

Pages that refer to this page: lastcomm(1)utmpdump(1)utmp(5)