mheese / mhwho

Show who is logged on and provide parseable output.

mhwho

Show who is logged on.

Yes, this utility is doing exactly the same as our traditional w, who and pinky commands. But have you ever tried to parse the output of one of these commands? w is still your best bet for that, all the other commands all have their downsides somehow. But also with w, you have the issue that the username gets cut off (unless you run a newer version and you can set an environment variable to make it longer). I had enough of it, and decided to write this tool.

All it does is reading the /var/run/utmp file (assuming glibc format), and displaying it in the way you want to.

Usage

See the help message as shown by the program:

mhwho.

Usage:

  mhwho [options]
  mhwho (-h | --help)
  mhwho --version

Options:
  -h, --help    Show this screen.
  --version     Show version.

  -a, --all         Show all logins, otherwise only user process logon types
                    are shown.
  -j, --json        Outputs all entries as JSON array. (Default)
  -l, --json-lines  Outputs each entry as JSON object on a new line.
  -c, --csv         Outputs each entry as CSV row on a new line.
      --csv-header  If you use CSV output, it will print a header row first.
  -x, --xml         Outputs all entries as XML document.

Examples

Here is the standard console output (which is hard-coded aligned to 80 characters per row):

LOGON TYPE  USER              TTY     PID     HOST                        LOGIN@
UserProces  vagrant           pts/0   2776    10.0.2.2         31-Mar-2016 16:40
UserProces  vagrant           pts/1   2863    10.0.2.2         31-Mar-2016 16:44
UserProces  vagrant           pts/2   2895    fe80::a00:27ff:  31-Mar-2016 16:45
UserProces  vagrant           pts/3   2925    fe80::a00:27ff:  31-Mar-2016 16:47

Here is some JSON output:

[{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/0","pid":2776,"host":"10.0.2.2","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:40:47.513326+00:00","time_epoch":1459442447,"ip_addr":"10.0.2.2"},{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/1","pid":2863,"host":"10.0.2.2","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:44:55.261504+00:00","time_epoch":1459442695,"ip_addr":"10.0.2.2"},{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/2","pid":2895,"host":"fe80::a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9%enp0s3","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:45:31.864225+00:00","time_epoch":1459442731,"ip_addr":"fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9"},{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/3","pid":2925,"host":"fe80::a00:27ff:fe00:eec2%enp0s8","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:47:18.450328+00:00","time_epoch":1459442838,"ip_addr":"fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe00:eec2"}]

One alternative to JSON, are JSON Lines:

{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/0","pid":2776,"host":"10.0.2.2","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:40:47.513326+00:00","time_epoch":1459442447,"ip_addr":"10.0.2.2"}
{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/1","pid":2863,"host":"10.0.2.2","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:44:55.261504+00:00","time_epoch":1459442695,"ip_addr":"10.0.2.2"}
{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/2","pid":2895,"host":"fe80::a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9%enp0s3","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:45:31.864225+00:00","time_epoch":1459442731,"ip_addr":"fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9"}
{"logon_type":"UserProcess","user":"vagrant","device":"pts/3","pid":2925,"host":"fe80::a00:27ff:fe00:eec2%enp0s8","timestamp":"2016-03-31T16:47:18.450328+00:00","time_epoch":1459442838,"ip_addr":"fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe00:eec2"}

If you need CSV output, this is how that looks like (this output used the --csv-header option too):

LogonType,User,TerminalDevice,PID,Host,Timestamp,TimestampEpoch,RemoteIP
UserProcess,vagrant,pts/0,2776,10.0.2.2,2016-03-31T16:40:47.513326+00:00,1459442447,10.0.2.2
UserProcess,vagrant,pts/1,2863,10.0.2.2,2016-03-31T16:44:55.261504+00:00,1459442695,10.0.2.2
UserProcess,vagrant,pts/2,2895,fe80::a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9%enp0s3,2016-03-31T16:45:31.864225+00:00,1459442731,fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9
UserProcess,vagrant,pts/3,2925,fe80::a00:27ff:fe00:eec2%enp0s8,2016-03-31T16:47:18.450328+00:00,1459442838,fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe00:eec2

Last but not least, if you're a fan of XML, you can also produce an XML document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<LogonEntries>
  <LogonEntry type="UserProcess" user="vagrant" terminal="pts/0" pid="2776" host="10.0.2.2" timestamp="2016-03-31T16:40:47.513326+00:00" time_epoch="1459442447" remote_ip="10.0.2.2"></LogonEntry>
  <LogonEntry type="UserProcess" user="vagrant" terminal="pts/1" pid="2863" host="10.0.2.2" timestamp="2016-03-31T16:44:55.261504+00:00" time_epoch="1459442695" remote_ip="10.0.2.2"></LogonEntry>
  <LogonEntry type="UserProcess" user="vagrant" terminal="pts/2" pid="2895" host="fe80::a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9%enp0s3" timestamp="2016-03-31T16:45:31.864225+00:00" time_epoch="1459442731" remote_ip="fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe3a:cda9"></LogonEntry>
  <LogonEntry type="UserProcess" user="vagrant" terminal="pts/3" pid="2925" host="fe80::a00:27ff:fe00:eec2%enp0s8" timestamp="2016-03-31T16:47:18.450328+00:00" time_epoch="1459442838" remote_ip="fe80:0000:0000:0000:0a00:27ff:fe00:eec2"></LogonEntry>
</LogonEntries>

License

mhwho is licensed under the GNU GPL version 3. Software must be free.