finger(1) will retrieve information about the specified
user. You give finger a username or an email address and
it will try to contact the necessary server and retrieve the username,
office, telephone number, and other pieces of information. Here is an example:
$ finger johnc@idsoftware.com |
finger can return the username, mail status, phone numbers,
and files referred to as “dot plan” and
“dot project”. Of course, the information returned varies with
each finger server. The one included with Slackware returns
the following information by default:
The first four items can be set with the chfn command. It
stores those values in the /etc/passwd file. To change
the information in your .plan or
.project file, just edit them with your favorite text
editor. They must reside in your home directory and must be called
.plan and .project.
Many users finger their own account from a remote machine
to quickly see if they have new email. Or, you can see a user's plan or
current project. John Carmack of id Software regularly updates his plan file
to tell the user community what he is currently working on.
Like many commands, finger has options. Check the man
page for more information on what special options you can use.