LAST, LASTB
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: October 2013
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NAME
last, lastb - show a listing of last logged in users
SYNOPSIS
last
[options]
[
username...] [
tty...]
lastb
[options]
[
username...] [
tty...]
DESCRIPTION
last
searches back through the
/var/log/wtmp
file (or the file designated by the
-f
option) and displays a list of all users logged in (and out) since that
file was created. One or more
usernames and/or
ttys
can be given, in which case
last
will show only the entries matching those arguments. Names of
ttys
can be abbreviated, thus
last 0
is the same as
last tty0.
When catching a SIGINT signal (generated by the interrupt key, usually
control-C) or a SIGQUIT signal,
last
will show how far it has searched through the file; in the case of the
SIGINT signal
last
will then terminate.
The pseudo user
reboot
logs in each time the system is rebooted. Thus
last reboot
will show a log of all the reboots since the log file was created.
lastb
is the same as
last,
except that by default it shows a log of the
/var/log/btmp
file, which contains all the bad login attempts.
OPTIONS
- -a, --hostlast
-
Display the hostname in the last column. Useful in combination with the
--dns
option.
- -d, --dns
-
For non-local logins, Linux stores not only the host name of the remote
host, but its IP number as well. This option translates the IP number
back into a hostname.
- -f, --file file
-
Tell
last
to use a specific file instead of
/var/log/wtmp.
The
--file
option can be given multiple times, and all of the specified files will be
processed.
- -F, --fulltimes
-
Print full login and logout times and dates.
- -i, --ip
-
Like
--dns ,
but displays the host's IP number instead of the name.
- -number
-
-n, --limit number
Tell
last
how many lines to show.
- -p, --present time
-
Display the users who were present at the specified time. This is
like using the options
--since and --until
together with the same time.
- -R, --nohostname
-
Suppresses the display of the hostname field.
- -s, --since time
-
Display the state of logins since the specified
time.
This is useful, e.g., to easily determine who was logged in at a
particular time. The option is often combined with
--until.
- -t, --until time
-
Display the state of logins until the specified
time.
- --time-format format
-
Define the output timestamp
format
to be one of
notime,
short,
full,
or
iso.
The
notime
variant will not print any timestamps at all,
short
is the default, and
full
is the same as the
--fulltimes
option. The
iso
variant will display the timestamp in ISO-8601 format. The ISO format
contains timezone information, making it preferable when printouts are
investigated outside of the system.
- -w, --fullnames
-
Display full user names and domain names in the output.
- -x, --system
-
Display the system shutdown entries and run level changes.
TIME FORMATS
The options that take the
time
argument understand the following formats:
| YYYYMMDDhhmmss | |
|
| YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss | |
|
| YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm | (seconds will be set to 00) |
|
| YYYY-MM-DD | (time will be set to 00:00:00) |
|
| hh:mm:ss | (date will be set to today) |
|
| hh:mm | (date will be set to today, seconds to 00) |
|
| now | |
|
| yesterday | (time is set to 00:00:00) |
|
| today | (time is set to 00:00:00) |
|
| tomorrow | (time is set to 00:00:00) |
|
| +5min | |
|
| -5days | |
|
NOTES
The files
wtmp
and
btmp
might not be found. The system only logs information in these files if
they are present. This is a local configuration issue. If you want the
files to be used, they can be created with a simple
touch(1)
command (for example,
touch /var/log/wtmp).
FILES
/var/log/wtmp
/var/log/btmp
AUTHOR
Miquel van Smoorenburg
AVAILABILITY
The last command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
Linux Kernel Archive
SEE ALSO
login(1),
wtmp(5),
init(8),
shutdown(8)
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OPTIONS
-
- TIME FORMATS
-
- NOTES
-
- FILES
-
- AUTHOR
-
- AVAILABILITY
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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