how to get the name of the user who is logged in

kushalkoolwal · 04-28-2006, 04:08 AM

Hi,

I am trying to write a script in which I would like to store the name of the user who is logged in and executing the scritp. For e.g. I log on into my system with the username 'tim'.

And then after logging I run a script called ./install and in that script I would like to store the my username(tim) in a variable called $username.

I tried who am i command but it gives other information also and not just the username.

I know it is very simple but I don;t know how to do it.

Thanks.

puntjuh · 04-28-2006, 04:33 AM

perhaps:

who -u

?

pwc101 · 04-28-2006, 05:09 AM

if you know their username and want to know what their real name is, try

Code:

finger <user_name>

that should give you any info on them, if they added it when the user was created.

EDIT: although for your purposes, that's probably too much information. when I run whoami, it just gives me my username (currently on RHEL)...

kushalkoolwal · 04-28-2006, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by puntjuh

perhaps:

who -u

?

No that does not work. It just gives me the name of all the users who are logged in. I just need the name of my own username. I know you might find it strange but I would like to store my own username in a variable in the shell script assuming that I don;t know my own username which I have used to log in.

Hope this clears something.

Thanks

kushalkoolwal · 04-28-2006, 05:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwc101

if you know their username and want to know what their real name is, try

Code:

finger <user_name>

that should give you any info on them, if they added it when the user was created.

EDIT: although for your purposes, that's probably too much information. when I run whoami, it just gives me my username (currently on RHEL)...

When I give the the command
#who am i

it gives me the following output:
tim pts/22 Apr 28 01:39 (116-54.hsd1.or.comcast.net)

Now this is fine. But I just need the name 'tim' in my shell script variable. How can I do that? Do I have to use the cut or something like that to just get the first word (i.e. tim) from the output.

Thanks

pwc101 · 04-28-2006, 05:37 AM

try

Code:

whoami

as one word.

if you wanted to, you could pipe the output of your original command through awk to get just the first column. something along the lines of

Code:

who am i|awk '{print $1}' > output_file

has the same effect as whoami (all one word)

kushalkoolwal · 04-28-2006, 05:43 AM

Great!!! That worked for me!!! Awesome pwc101.....

ioerror · 04-28-2006, 08:40 AM

Your username is already in a variable, several in fact, namely $USER and $LOGNAME.

kushalkoolwal · 04-28-2006, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioerror

Your username is already in a variable, several in fact, namely $USER and $LOGNAME.

Duh. How stupid I am.......

I completely forgot about it.

Thanks ioerror...you are the man.