w – show system load and user activity

w command is a basic Unix command that helps you to quickly confirm general system status and to see which users are logged (and what they’re doing right now).

Basic w command Example

Just type w in command line prompt to see the basic output (I’m running this on my MacOS laptop):

greys@maverick:~ $ w
10:37 up 1 day, 11:41, 4 users, load averages: 2.38 2.54 2.61
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
greys console - Mon22 35:38 -
greys s000 - Mon22 25 /usr/bin/less -is
greys s001 - Mon22 - w
greys s002 - 10:22 3 -bash

You will immediately recognise that some of this functionality is provided by the uptime command and who command, but in addition your w command shows you current command each user is running (last column).

See Also

• Basic Unix commands
• Unix Commands
• who command
• uptime command