LASTCOMM(1) LASTCOMM(1)
1995 October 31
NAME
lastcomm - print out information about previously executed commands.
SYNOPSIS
lastcomm
[ command-name ... ]
[ user-name ... ]
[ terminal-name ... ]
[ OPTION ... ]
DESCRIPTION
lastcomm prints out information about previously executed commands.
If no arguments are specified, lastcomm will print info about all of
the commands in acct (the record file). If called with one or more of
command-name, user-name, or terminal-name, only records containing
those items will be displayed. For example, to find out which users
used command `a.out' and which users were logged into `tty0', type:
lastcomm a.out tty0
This will print any entry for which `a.out' or `tty0' matches in any
of the record's fields (command, name, or terminal). If you want to
find only items that match *all* of the arguments on the command line,
you must use the '-strict-match' option. For example, to list all of
the executions of command a.out by user root on terminal tty0, type:
lastcomm --strict-match --command a.out --user root --tty tty0
The order of the arguments is not important. For each entry the fol-
lowing information is printed:
+ command name of the process
+ flags, as recorded by the system accounting routines:
S -- command executed by super-user
F -- command executed after a fork but without a following
exec
C -- command run in PDP-11 compatibility mode (VAX only)
D -- command terminated with the generation of a core file
X -- command was terminated with the signal SIGTERM
+ the name of the user who ran the process
+ time the process started
OPTIONS
--strict-match
Print only entries that match *all* of the arguments on the com-
mand line.
--print-controls
Print control characters.
--user name
List records for user with name. This is useful if you're trying
to match a username that happens to be the same as a command
(e.g., ed ).
--command name
List records for command name.
--tty name
List records for tty name.
- 1 - Formatted: December 16, 2025
LASTCOMM(1) LASTCOMM(1)
1995 October 31
--forwards
Read file forwards instead of backwards. This avoids trying to
seek on the file and can be used to read from a pipe. This must
be specified prior to any -f arguments.
-f filename, --file filename
Read from the file filename instead of acct. A filename of "-"
will result in reading from stdin. This must either be the first
-f option, or --forwards must precede all -f options.
--ahz hz
Use this flag to tell the program what AHZ should be (in hertz).
This option is useful if you are trying to view an acct file
created on another machine which has the same byte order and file
format as your current machine, but has a different value for
AHZ.
-p, --show-paging
Print paging statistics.
--pid
Show PID and PPID of the process if acct version 3 format is sup-
ported by kernel.
--pid
Add pid of the process and pid of the process parent to the out-
put (pid is the last but one and parent pid the last column).
These values are shown only when they are generated by acct func-
tion (depends on the version of kernel)
--debug
Print verbose internal information.
-V, --version
Print the version number of lastcomm.
-h, --help
Prints the usage string and default locations of system files to
standard output and exits.
FILES
acct
The system wide process accounting file. See acct(5) (or
pacct(5)) for further details. /var/log/account
This directory contains pacct files which contain the binary
process accounting data as written by the kernel.
AUTHOR
The GNU accounting utilities were written by Noel Cragg
<noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu>. The man page was adapted from the accounting
texinfo page by Susan Kleinmann <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>.
SEE ALSO
last(1), acct(5)
- 2 - Formatted: December 16, 2025
