LAST(1)                          User Commands                         LAST(1)

NAME
       last, lastb - show a listing of last logged in users

SYNOPSIS
       last [options] [username|tty]...

       lastb [options] [username|tty]...

DESCRIPTION
       last searches back through the /var/log/wtmp file (or the file given
       with the -f option) and displays a list of all users who logged in (and
       out) since that file was created.  One or more usernames and/or ttys
       can be given, in which case last will show only the entries matching
       those arguments. (Names of ttys can be abbreviated, thus last 0 is the
       same as last tty0.)

       When catching a SIGINT or SIGQUIT signal, last will show how far it has
       searched through the file, and in case of the SIGINT signal (generated
       by the interrupt key, usually control-C) last will then terminate.

       The pseudo user reboot logs in each time the system is rebooted. Thus
       last reboot will show a log of all the reboots since the log file was
       created.

       lastb is the same as last, except that by default it shows a log of the
       /var/log/btmp file, which contains all the bad login attempts.

OPTIONS
       -a, --hostlast
           Display the hostname in the last column. Useful in combination with
           the -d option.

       -d, --dns
           For non-local logins, Linux stores not only the host name of the
           remote host, but its IP number as well. This option translates the
           IP number back into a hostname.

       -f, --file file
           Tell last to use a specific file instead of /var/log/wtmp. The -f
           option can be given multiple times, and all of the specified files
           will be processed.

       -F, --fulltimes
           Print full login and logout times and dates.

       -i, --ip
           Like -d, but displays the host's IP number instead of the name.

       -n, --limit number
           The maximum amount of logins to show.

       -number
           The same as -n number.

       -p, --present time
           Display the users who were present at the specified time.  For ways
           to specify time, see the section TIME FORMATS below.

       -R, --nohostname
           Suppresses the display of the hostname field.

       -s, --since time
           Display the state of logins since the specified time.  The option
           can be combined with -t to cover a period.

       -t, --until time
           Display the state of logins until the specified time.

       -T, --tab-separated
           Use ASCII tab characters to separate the columns in the output
           instead of spaces.

       --time-format format
           Define the appearance of the timestamp to be one of: notime, short,
           full, or iso.  The notime variant will not print any timestamps at
           all, short is the default, and full is the same as the --fulltimes
           option.  The iso variant will display the timestamp in ISO-8601
           format.  The ISO format contains timezone information, making it
           preferable when printouts are investigated outside of the system.

       -w, --fullnames
           Display full user names and domain names / IP addresses.  When this
           option is not specified, user names are truncated to 8 characters,
           and domain names and IP addresses to 16 characters.  An asterisk is
           shown as the last character of truncated fields.

       -x, --system
           Display the system shutdown entries and run level changes.

       -h, --help
           Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
           Display version and exit.

TIME FORMATS
       The argument time allows the following forms:

            YYYYMMDDhhmmss
            "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss"
            "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm"      (seconds is 00)
            YYYY-MM-DD              (time is 00:00:00)
            hh:mm:ss                (date is today)
            hh:mm                   (date is today, seconds is 00)
            now
            today                   (time is 00:00:00)
            yesterday               (time is 00:00:00)
            -number[smhd]           (seconds/minutes/hours/days before now)

       Examples of the -number[smhd] format are: -5m, -6h, -2d.  The unit
       specifier may be longer: -5min, -6hours, -2days.

FILES
       /var/log/wtmp, /var/log/btmp

NOTES
       The files wtmp and btmp might not be found. The system only logs
       information in these files if they are present. This is a local
       configuration issue. If you want the files to be used, they can be
       created with a simple touch(1) command (for example, touch
       /var/log/wtmp).

       An empty entry is a valid type of wtmp entry. It means that an empty
       file or file with zeros is not interpreted as an error.

       The utmp file format uses fixed sizes of strings, which means that very
       long strings are impossible to store in the file and impossible to
       display by last. The usual limits are 32 bytes for a user and line name
       and 256 bytes for a hostname.

AUTHORS
       Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@cistron.nl>

SEE ALSO
       login(1), wtmp(5), init(8), shutdown(8)

REPORTING BUGS
       For bug reports, use the issue tracker
       <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY
       The last command is part of the util-linux package which can be
       downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

util-linux 2.42                   2026-04-01                           LAST(1)