irix - w (1)




NAME
     w - who is	on and what they are doing


SYNOPSIS
     w [ -fhlsuW ] [ user ]


DESCRIPTION
     w prints a	summary	of the current activity	on the system, including what
     each user is doing.  The heading line shows the current time of day, how
     long the system has been up, the number of	users logged into the system,
     and the load averages.  The load average numbers give the number of jobs
     in	the run	queue averaged over 1, 5 and 15	minutes.

     The fields	output are:  the user's	login name, the	name of	the tty	the
     user is on, the host from which the user is logged	in (generally the
     session's $DISPLAY	variable: see xdm(1)), the time	the user logged	on,
     the length	of time	since the user last typed anything, the	CPU time used
     by	all processes and their	children on that terminal, the CPU time	used
     by	the currently active processes,	the name and arguments of the current
     process.

     The options are:

     -h	  suppresses the heading.

     -u	  displays the heading only (same as uptime(1)).

     -s	  displays a short form	of output.  In the short form, the tty is
	  abbreviated, the login time and cpu times are	left off, as are the
	  arguments to commands.

     -l	  gives	the long output, which is the default.

     -f	  suppresses the ``from'' field.

     -W	  shows	a wider	field for the program name and displays	the ``from''
	  field	on a separate line, untruncated.  (The utmpx ut_host field
	  accommodates a 256-character string, but most	commands truncate
	  before displaying it).

     If	a user name is included, the output will be restricted to that user.


NOTES
     w(1) and who(1) can report	different idle times for the same line.	 w
     will report the time elapsed since	input occurred,	while who will report
     the time elapsed since output occurred (roughly speaking).	 If there is a
     job running that produces output, the idle	times will differ between the
     two programs:

     babylon: who -Hu
     NAME	LINE	     TIME	   IDLE	   PID	COMMENTS

     babylon: w
     User     tty from	      login@  idle   JCPU   PCPU  what
     root     d1	     10:37am  5:54     23     23  tail -f SYSLOG

     wanda: w -W
       6:06am  up 755 days, 13:53,  6 users,  load average: 0.11, 0.10,	0.11
     User     tty	login@	idle   JCPU   PCPU  what
     jimclark ttyq36	6:06am	1:56		    -ksh
	      192.111.17.42
     tj	      ttyq33	Fri 8am		8:21	  6  rlogin peanut.csd
	      :0.0
     ed	      ttyq38	6:11am		  1	    w -W
	      gate-bonnie.wpd.sgi.com:0.0


FILES
     /var/adm/utmp
     /dev/kmem


SEE ALSO
     xdm(1), who(1), ps(1), uptime(1)


BUGS
     The notion	of the ``current process'' is muddy.  The current algorithm is
     ``the highest numbered process on the terminal that is not	ignoring
     interrupts, or, if	there is none, the highest numbered process on the
     terminal''.  This fails, for example, in critical sections	of programs
     like the shell and	editor,	or when	faulty programs	running	in the
     background	fork and fail to ignore	interrupts.  (In cases where no
     process can be found, w prints ``-''.)

     The CPU time is only an estimate, in particular, if someone leaves	a
     background	process	running	after logging out, the person currently	on
     that terminal is ``charged'' with the time.

     Background	processes are not shown, even though they account for much of
     the load on the system.

     Sometimes processes, typically those in the background, are printed with
     null or garbaged arguments.  In these cases, the name of the command is
     printed in	parentheses.

     w does not	know about the new conventions for detection of	background
     jobs.  It will sometimes find a background	job instead of the right one.