linux ac: Print how long users have been connected in hours

Print how long users have been connected in hours with Linux ac

Tracking user activity and monitoring login session durations is essential for system administrators. With the Linux ac command, you can easily retrieve information about user logins, including the duration of their sessions. By printing out this data in hours, you gain insights into user behavior and system usage patterns. Let's dive into how you can accomplish this with the ac command in Linux.

To get started, open your Linux terminal and enter the following command:

ac -p

The -p option is used to generate output in a more machine-readable format. This makes it easier to parse and extract relevant information. Upon executing the command, you will see a table with the following columns: total, min, user, and tty. The user column displays the name of the logged-in user, while the tty column indicates the specific terminal device they are using.

To print the login duration of each user in hours, we need to utilize additional tools. Specifically, we will combine the ac command with the awk command. Awk is a versatile text-processing tool that allows us to manipulate and extract data from structured text.

Here's an example of how you can print the user login duration in hours:

ac -p | awk '{printf "%-10s %-10s %5.2f hrs\n", $1, $2, $3/3600}'

Running this command will generate a table that includes the user's name, the terminal device abbreviation, and the login duration in hours. The format specifier %5.2f ensures that the duration is displayed with two decimal places.

Furthermore, you can sort the output to highlight the users with the longest sessions. To achieve this, pipe the output of the previous command to the sort command, like this:

ac -p | awk '{printf "%-10s %-10s %5.2f hrs\n", $1, $2, $3/3600}' | sort -k3 -nr

The -k3 option indicates that the sorting should be based on the third column, which represents the login duration. Adding the -nr flag ensures that the sorting is done in reverse numerical order, showcasing the longest sessions first.

By leveraging the power of the ac command in conjunction with the versatile text-processing capabilities of awk, you can effortlessly retrieve and display user login durations in hours. This information is valuable for understanding user behavior, system usage patterns, and identifying any anomalies.

Remember, monitoring user activity and session durations can aid in maintaining the security and overall performance of your Linux system. So, start utilizing the ac command today and gain valuable insights into your system's user activity.