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LAST(1) 		     General Commands Manual			 LAST(1)

NAME
     last -- indicate last logins of users and ttys

SYNOPSIS
     last [--libxo] [-swy] [-d [[CC]YY][MMDD]hhmm[.SS]] [-f file] [-h host]
	  [-n maxrec] [-t tty] [user ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The  last	utility  will either list the sessions of specified users, ttys,
     and hosts, in reverse time order, or list the users logged in at  a  speci-
     fied  date  and  time.  Each line of output contains the user name, the tty
     from which the session was conducted, any	hostname,  the	start  and  stop
     times  for the session, and the duration of the session.  If the session is
     still continuing or was cut short by a crash or shutdown, last will so  in-
     dicate.

     The following options are available:

     --libxo	 Generate  output via libxo(3) in a selection of different human
		 and machine readable formats.	See xo_options(7) for details on
		 command line arguments.

     -d date	 Specify the snapshot date and time.  All users logged in at the
		 snapshot date and time will be reported.  This may be used with
		 the -f option to derive the results from stored utx.log  files.
		 When this argument is provided, all other options except for -f
		 and  -n  are  ignored.   The  argument  should  be  in the form
		 [[CC]YY][MMDD]hhmm[.SS] where each pair of  letters  represents
		 the following:

		       CC      The first two digits of the year (the century).
		       YY      The  second  two  digits  of  the year.	If YY is
			       specified, but CC is not, a value for YY  between
			       69  and	99  results in a CC value of 19.  Other-
			       wise, a CC value of 20 is used.
		       MM      Month of the year, from 1 to 12.
		       DD      Day of the month, from 1 to 31.
		       hh      Hour of the day, from 0 to 23.
		       mm      Minute of the hour, from 0 to 59.
		       SS      Second of the minute, from 0 to 60.

		 If the CC and YY letter pairs are not specified, the values de-
		 fault to the current year.  If the SS letter pair is not speci-
		 fied, the value defaults to 0.

     -f file	 Read the file file instead of the default, /var/log/utx.log.

     -h host	 Host names may be names or internet numbers.

     -n maxrec	 Limit the report to maxrec lines.

     -s 	 Report the duration of the login session in seconds, instead of
		 the default days, hours and minutes.

     -t tty	 Specify the tty.  Tty names may be given fully or  abbreviated,
		 for example, "last -t 03" is equivalent to "last -t tty03".

     -w 	 Widen	the  duration  field to show seconds, as well as the de-
		 fault days, hours and minutes.

     -y 	 Report the year in the session start time.

     If multiple arguments are given, and a snapshot time is not specified,  the
     information  which  applies to any of the arguments is printed, e.g., "last
     root -t console" would list all of "root's" sessions as well  as  all  ses-
     sions  on	the  console  terminal.  If no users, hostnames or terminals are
     specified, last prints a record of all logins and logouts.

     The pseudo-user reboot logs in at reboots of the system, thus "last reboot"
     will give an indication of mean time between reboot.

     If last is interrupted, it indicates to  what  date  the  search  has  pro-
     gressed.	If  interrupted  with  a  quit signal last indicates how far the
     search has progressed and then continues.

FILES
     /var/log/utx.log  login data base

EXAMPLES
     Show logins in pts/14 with the duration in seconds and limit the report  to
     two lines:

	   $ last -n2 -s -t pts/14
	   bob	  pts/1   Wed Dec  9 11:08   still logged in
	   bob	  pts/2   Mon Dec  7 20:10 - 20:23  (	  776)

     Show active logins at `December 7th 20:23' of the current year:

	   $ last -d 12072023
	   bob	  pts/1    Mon Dec  7 20:10 - 20:23  (00:12)
	   bob	  pts/6    Mon Dec  7 19:24 - 22:27  (03:03)
	   alice  ttyv0    Mon Dec  7 19:18 - 22:27  (03:09)

SEE ALSO
     lastcomm(1), getutxent(3), libxo(3), xo_options(7), ac(8), lastlogin(8)

HISTORY
     last utility first appeared in 1BSD.

AUTHORS
     The original version was written by Howard P. Katseff; Keith Bostic rewrote
     it  in  1986/87  to  add functionality and to improve code quality.  Philip
     Paeps added libxo(3) support in August 2018.

BUGS
     If a login shell should terminate abnormally for some reason, it is  likely
     that  a  logout  record  will  not be written to the utx.log file.  In this
     case, last will indicate the logout time as "shutdown".

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly	  July 16, 2025 			 LAST(1)

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