.\" Copyright (C) 1998-2004 Miquel van Smoorenburg.
.\"
.\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
.\" (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
.\" along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
.\" Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
.\"
.TH "LAST,LASTB" "1" "August 2013" "util-linux" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
last, lastb \- show listing of last logged in users
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B last
.RI [ options ]
.RI [ username... ]
.RI [ tty... ]
.br
.B lastb
.RI [ options ]
.RI [ username... ]
.RI [ tty... ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B last
searches back through the file
.B /var/log/wtmp
(or the file designated by the
.B \-f
option) and displays a list of all users logged in (and out) since that
file was created.
.I Names
of users and
.IR tty 's
can be given, in which case
.B last
will show only those entries matching the arguments. Names of
.I ttys
can be abbreviated, thus
.B last 0
is the same as
.BR "last tty0" .
.PP
When
.B last
catches a \s-2SIGINT\s0 signal (generated by the interrupt key, usually
control-C) or a \s-2SIGQUIT\s0 signal,
.B last
will show how far it has searched through the file; in the case of the
\s-2SIGINT\s0 signal
.B last
will then terminate.
.PP
The pseudo user
.B reboot
logs in each time the system is rebooted. Thus
.B last reboot
will show a log of all reboots since the log file was created.
.PP
.B lastb
is the same as
.BR last ,
except that by default it shows a log of the file
.BR /var/log/btmp ,
which contains all the bad login attempts.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-file\fR \fIfile\fR
Tell
.B last
to use a specific file instead of
.BR /var/log/wtmp .
The
.BI \-\-file " file"
can be specified multiple times, and all of the defined files will be
processed.
.TP
\fB\-\fInumber\fR
.TQ
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-limit\fR \fInumber\fR
This is a count telling
.B last
how many lines to show.
.TP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-since\fR \fItime\fR
Display the state of logins since specified
.IR time .
This is useful, e.g., to determine easily who was logged in at a
particular time. The option is often combined with
.BR \-\-until .
.TP
\fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-until\fR \fItime\fR
Display the state of logins until the specified
.IR time .
.TP
\fB\-p\fR, \fB\-\-present\fR \fItime\fR
Display users who were present at the specified time. This option is
similar with
.BR \-\-since " and " \-\-until ,
without printing any other lines than the matching sessions.
.TP
\fB\-F\fR, \fB\-\-fulltimes\fR
Print full login and logout times and dates.
.TP
\fB\-R\fR, \fB\-\-nohostname\fR
Suppresses the display of the hostname field.
.TP
\fB\-a\fR, \fB\-\-hostlast\fR
Display the hostname in the last column. Useful in combination with the
.B \-\-dns
option.
.TP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-dns\fR
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.
.TP
\fB\-F\fR, \fB\-\-fullnames\fR
Print full login and logout times and dates.
.TP
\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-ip\fR
This option is like
.B \-\-dns
in that it displays the remote host, but it displays the host in IP
number notation.
.TP
\fB\-w\fR, \fB\-\-fullnames\fR
Display full user and domain names in the output.
.TP
\fB\-x\fR, \fB\-\-system\fR
Display the system shutdown entries and run level changes.
.SH TIME FORMATS
The options that take
.I time
argument will understand the following formats:
.TS
left l2 l2.
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
.TE
.SH NOTES
The files
.I wtmp
and
.I 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
.BR touch (1)
command (for example,
.IR "touch /var/log/wtmp" ).
.SH FILES
/var/log/wtmp
.br
/var/log/btmp
.SH AUTHOR
.MT miquels@cistron.nl
Miquel van Smoorenburg
.ME
.SH AVAILABILITY
The last command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
.UR ftp://\:ftp.kernel.org\:/pub\:/linux\:/utils\:/util-linux/
Linux Kernel Archive
.UE .
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR shutdown (8),
.BR login (1),
.BR init (8)
