W Command in Linux – Examples + Options

Linux is a multi-user operating system and it can have several users logged in at the same time. Every user may access different files/directories and may perform different operations. It is not an easy task for system administrators to keep track of how many users are currently logged in.

In this tutorial, we will learn about w command in Linux to check the information of users who are currently on the system.

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of the Linux command-line interface.
• Root or normal user access.
• Difficulty level - Easy

W Command in Linux

The w command is a Linux utility that enables the system administrators to view currently logged-in users and other information about these users. The command line output includes the usernames of the current users, their log-in location, and the operations they are performing.

The following figure describes header row fields and user information fields:

When you use the w command without any options, the command header shows the current time, total system running time, number of users currently logged in, and average system load for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes. The same information you can get from the uptime command.

After the headers line it shows the following 8 columns:

• USER - The name of the user who logged in.
• TTY - The terminal name which the user used to logged in.
• FROM - The IP address or system hostname the user used to logged in.
• [email protected] - The time when the user logged in
• IDLE - This represents idle time. This show how long since the user typed any input on the terminal.
• JCPU - The time used by all processes attached to the tty.
• PCPU - The time used by the current process, named in the "what" field.
• WHAT - The name of the user's current process.

The w command does not display past background jobs but shows presently running background jobs.

Here is an output of the w command-line utility without any option:

03:10:28 up 4 days,  4:21,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM             [email protected]   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
root     pts/0    192.168.1.10      01:29   44:43   0.24s  0.24s -bash
tom      pts/1    192.168.1.22      02:26   42:32   0.06s  0.06s -bash
linuxops pts/2   92.168.1.22      02:22    0.00s  0.13s  0.01s w

The syntax of the w command is:

w [options] [username]

W Command Options

The w command provides various options to filter out the results to meet your specific business requirements.

The following command lists some of the most common w command options:

How to Use W Command in Linux

When you use options with the w command, the output changes. The following examples show you how to use the w command to display information about all currently logged-in users and the operations that they are performing.

Display without Header

Use the w command with -h option to display output without header. This lets you focus only on the user information while avoiding system details and field labels:

w -h

Output
root     pts/0    192.168.1.10      01:29   58:14   0.24s  0.24s -bash
tom      pts/1    192.168.1.22      02:26   56:03   0.06s  0.06s -bash
linuxops pts/2    !92.168.1.22      02:22    3.00s  0.13s  0.00s w -h

This output does not show any header information, only the result entries.

Ignore Username

Use the -u option to ignore the username while figuring out the current process and CPU times:

w -u

Output
 03:26:57 up 4 days,  4:37,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM             [email protected]   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
root     pts/0    192.168.1.10      01:29    1:01m  0.24s  0.24s -bash
tom      pts/1    192.168.1.22      02:26   59:01   0.06s  0.06s -bash
linuxops pts/2   192.168.1.22      02:22    1.00s  0.14s  0.00s w -u

To verify you can switch user using su and check the results of w and w -u.

Display IP Address

By default, the w command FROM field displays the hostname or the terminal of the remote user logged in the system. Use the -i option to display the IP address of the user:

w -i

This option displays the IP address of the user if the user is remotely connected. Otherwise, you will see only 0 in the FROM field.

Display Old-Style Output

You can use the w command with -o option to display old-style output in which the command prints blank space for the IDLE, JCPU, and PCPU fields if a user has been idle for less than one minute:

w -o

Output
 03:35:59 up 4 days,  4:46,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM             [email protected]   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
root     pts/0    192.168.1.10      01:29    1:10                -bash
tom      pts/1    192.168.1.22      02:26    1:08                -bash
linuxops pts/2    192.168.1.22      02:22                        w -o

Toggle Printing FROM Field

The default output of the w command may not include the FROM field in some Linux distributions. For example, Arch Linux does not show the FROM field by default, but Ubuntu does. The -f option hides or shows the FROM field based on the default output of your system:

w -f

Output
 04:01:49 up 4 days,  5:12,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
USER     TTY        [email protected]   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
root     pts/0     01:29    1:36m  0.24s  0.24s -bash
tom      pts/1     02:26    1:33m  0.06s  0.06s -bash
linuxops pts/2     02:22    5.00s  0.20s  0.00s w -f

This output is from Ubuntu where FROM field is displayed by default and the -f option hides it.

Display Specified User Information

To display information about a particular user, include the username as the w command argument. For example, if you want to display login time and other information for the user linuxopsys, type:

w linuxopsys

Output
 03:37:19 up 4 days,  4:48,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM             [email protected]   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
linuxops pts/2    192.168.1.22      02:22    5.00s  0.19s  0.01s w linuxopsys

Difference between W and Who Command

Linux provides various commands to display a list of the currently logged in users. The w and who are two such commands. However, these commands have some functional differences:

The w command shows user-level information like a list of currently logged-in users, the user ids, and the activities these users are performing on the system. It also displays system load averages and the running time. Whereas the who command determines the last time your system was booted, list of currently logged-in users, and current run level of the system. This command always displays the username of the user that is running the command.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to use the w command to list currently logged-in users and the operations they are performing. This command may behave differently on different Linux distributions. You can use the command options to identify the information that you need.

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