To find out about a certain user, they can be fingered specifically (and need not be logged in):
% finger bart@cs.widener.edu
[cs.widener.edu]
Login name: bart In real life: Bart Simpson
Directory: /home/springfield/bart Shell: /bin/underachiever
Affiliation: Brother of Lisa Home System: channel29.fox.org
Last login Thu May 23 12:14 (EDT) on ttyp6 from channel29.fox.org.
No unread mail
Project: To become a "fluff" cartoon character.
Plan:
Don't have a cow, man.
Please realize that some sites are very security conscious, and need to restrict the information about their systems and users available to the outside world. To that end, they often block finger requests from outside sites—-so don't be surprised if fingering a computer or a user returns with Connection refused.
Internet Relay Chat
The Lamont View Server System
On lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu in pub/gb.tar.Z.
Ping
The ping command allows the user to check if another system is currently "up" and running. The general form of the command is ping system. {The usage will, again, vary.} For example,
ping cs.widener.edu
will tell you if the main machine in Widener University's Computer Science lab is currently online (we certainly hope so!).
Many implementations of ping also include an option to let you see how fast a link is running (to give you some idea of the load on the network). For example: