Ubuntu Manpage: lastcomm - print out information about previously executed commands.

NAME

       lastcomm -  print out information about previously executed commands.

SYNOPSIS

       lastcomm
              [ command-name ...  ]
              [ user-name ...  ]
              [ terminal-name ...  ]
              [ OPTION ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       lastcomm  prints  out information about previously executed commands.  If no arguments are
       specified, lastcomm will print info about all of the commands in acct (the  record  file).
       If  called  with  one  or  more of command-name, user-name, or terminal-name, only records
       containing those items will be displayed.  For example,  to  find  out  which  users  used
       command `a.out' and which users were logged into `tty0', type:
                                          lastcomm a.out tty0

       This  will  print  any  entry  for  which `a.out' or `tty0' matches in any of the record's
       fields (command, name, or terminal).  If you want to find only items that match  *all*  of
       the  arguments on the command line, you must use the '-strict-match' option.  For example,
       to list all of the executions of command a.out by user root on terminal tty0, type:
                     lastcomm --strict-match --command a.out --user root --tty tty0

       The order of the arguments is not important.

       For each entry the following information is printed:
          + command name of the process
          + flags, as recorded by the system accounting routines:
               S -- command executed by super-user
               F -- command executed after a fork but without a following exec
               C -- command run in PDP-11 compatibility mode (VAX only)
               D -- command terminated with the generation of a core file
               X -- command was terminated with the signal SIGTERM
          + the name of the user who ran the process
          + time the process started

OPTIONS

--strict-match
Print only entries that match *all* of the arguments on the command line.
--print-controls
Print control characters.
--user name
List records for user with name. This is useful if you're trying to match a
username that happens to be the same as a command (e.g., ed ).
--command name
List records for command name.
--tty name
List records for tty name.
--forwards
Read file forwards instead of backwards. This avoids trying to seek on the file and
can be used to read from a pipe. This must be specified prior to any -f arguments.
-f filename, --file filename
Read from the file filename instead of acct. A filename of "-" will result in
reading from stdin. This must either be the first -f option, or --forwards must
precede all -f options.
--ahz hz
Use this flag to tell the program what AHZ should be (in hertz). This option is
useful if you are trying to view an acct file created on another machine which has
the same byte order and file format as your current machine, but has a different
value for AHZ.
-p, --show-paging
Print paging statistics.
--pid Show PID and PPID of the process if acct version 3 format is supported by kernel.
--pid Add pid of the process and pid of the process parent to the output (pid is the last
but one and parent pid the last column). These values are shown only when they are
generated by acct function (depends on the version of kernel)
--debug
Print verbose internal information.
-V, --version
Print the version number of lastcomm.
-h, --help
Prints the usage string and default locations of system files to standard output
and exits.

FILES

       acct
              The system wide process accounting file. See  acct(5)  (or  pacct(5))  for  further
              details.  /var/log/account
                     This  directory  contains  pacct  files  which  contain  the  binary process
                     accounting data as written by the kernel.

AUTHOR