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Am I STILL Logged On?

Have you ever wondered if you have completely logged off the computer? Have you ever had friends tell you they did a finger, and it showed you are logged on and have been idle for days? To verify that you have "really" logged off the computer, you might check your status with a w (who) or a f (finger) command which checks the file "/etc/utmp" for information about current activity and then follow up with a ps (process status) check.

Here is a fictitious example, done on a Sun client:

% f
Login   Name            TTY     Idle    When            Office
fowl    Daffy Duck      co      4       Mon 09:46       CE777/49-40000
fowl    Daffy Duck      p0      4       Mon 09:46       CE777/49-40000
fowl    Daffy Duck      p1      4       Mon 09:46       CE777/49-40000
fowl    Daffy Duck      p2      1       Mon 09:46       CE777/49-40000
mice    Mick Mouse      p6      59d     Tue 15:40       Disneyland/none

In the above example, login "fowl" is running a windowing package and each window he creates is treated as another login session. This is one of the nice features of using a SUN.

Another check on the idle login shows:

% f mice
Login name: mice        In real life: Mick Mouse
Office: Disneyland
Directory: /usr/atoms/mice      Shell: /bin/csh
Expires: August 1988    Login group: other (1)
Department: Engineering
Classification: Graduate Student
On since Jul 14 15:40:26 on ttyp6
  59 days Idle Time
No unread mail on this host.
No Plan.

When you are checking on your own login, if the finger commands returns information showing YOUR LOGIN has been active for an extended length of time, you should check the tty (terminal) listed as being used to see if you are "really" logged on, OR if it is just the computer being confused. To check on terminal activity (in our example: tty p6), run the ps command:

% ps -axtp6

     (axt=list all processes for specified terminal)
    PID TT STAT  TIME COMMAND
 %

In the above example, the computer responded by returning only the prompt; thereby, telling you that there are no processes running. So, Mick Mouse is not REALLY logged on the client!

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