9.5 Viewing User Information (rusers)

The rusers command (for remote users) shows you who's logged on to other machines on your network. Typing the rusers command by itself displays each machine on the network and the user(s) logged in to them, as follows:

$ rusers
aspen          susan
blue           keithp
dakota         sally
farmhouse      elmer
freeway        lindab     johnj     karenm
fretful        hank
lonesome       george
twister        tex
$

Notice that machine freeway has three different users currently logged in.

To display information on a specific remote machine, type the rusers command followed by the name of the machine, as follows:

$ rusers freeway
freeway        lindab     johnj     karenm
$

The -l option to the rusers command provides more detailed information, including user names, machine and terminal names, the time each user logged in, how long each user's been idle (if more than one minute), and the name of the machine that each user logged in from (if any):

$ rusers -l freeway
lindab        freeway:ttyd8     Feb 10 08:12     5:29
johnj         freeway:console   Feb 10 09:16
karenm        freeway:ttyp0     Feb 10 11:56       36
$

You can also use the -l option without providing a machine name.

For more information on the rusers(1) command and its options, refer to the man Pages(1): User Commands.