The w command is a basic Linux command that shows who is logged into the system and what they are doing. It also reveals what processes are running on the system and their status.
How to use the w command
To use the w command, type "w" at the terminal.
The syntax is as follows:
w [options] user [...]
It will give you a list of all users that are currently logged into the system, as well as their login time, tty, idle time, and what they are running. For example:
w
05:44:44 up 1 min, 0 users, load average: 0.52, 0.58, 0.59
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
As you see from the output above, there is only one user logged into the system, and they have been idle for 1 minute. The "WHAT" column shows what process the user is running. In this case, the user is running the bash shell.
Options for the w command in Linux
You can use the w command with different options to get different information. For example, if you want to find out more about a specific user, you can use the -u option followed by the username.
-u option
w -u j4y
Output:
06:25:40 up 42 min, 0 users, load average: 0.52, 0.58, 0.59
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
It will show you the user's username, terminal type, login time, idle time, and JCPU.
-h option
With many users, you may sometimes find the header being of no use. To remove the header, you can use the -h option:
w -h
-s option
The s option returns the short version of the output information.
w -s
Output:
06:36:22 up 53 min, 0 users, load average: 0.52, 0.58, 0.59
USER TTY FROM IDLE WHAT
As you can see, the PCPU, JCPU, and LOGIN@ have been omitted.
These are just a few examples of options that are used mostly. To get a list of all the options, Use the command like this.
w --help
Output:
Usage:
w [options]
Options:
-h, --no-header do not print header
-u, --no-current ignore current process username
-s, --short short format
-f, --from show remote hostname field
-o, --old-style old style output
-i, --ip-addr display IP address instead of hostname (if possible)
--help display this help and exit
-V, --version output version information and exit
For more details see w(1).
That is all there is to using the w command in Linux. For more information, consult the man pages(man w).
man w
Conclusion
The w command can be helpful in finding out who is using the most resources on a system. It can also find out who has been logged in for a long time or idle for a long time.
The w command can help in troubleshooting issues on a Linux system. This article goes through some of the primary usages of the w command.
Thanks for reading!
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