"LAST,(LASTB") manual page
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last, lastb - show a listing of last logged in users
last [options] [username...] [tty...]
lastb [options] [username...] [tty...]
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.
- -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 preferrable 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.
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 |
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).
/var/log/wtmp
/var/log/btmp
Miquel van Smoorenburg
The last command
is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive
shutdown(8)
, login(1)
, init(8)
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