'w' Shows 2 users lists one

[John Hubbard]

Derek Broughton wrote:
>
> I don't really know, because I'd never heard of 'w' until you asked, but
> what does "ps a" show you?  You should see tty1-tty6, which are running
> either /sbin/getty, meaning they're waiting for a login, or some program
> (usually /bin/login) indicating a logged-in user.  If it's
> running /bin/login, it will also have at the least a process running a
> login shell.  Then you'll have tty7 - and possibly 8-12 - running X (as
> root), on which your desktop users are logged in.  The "pts" sessions
> shouldn't matter unless they're SSH session - they're terminals inside your
> destkop.  'w' will show the ssh sessions as "from" somewhere else, anyway.
>   
'ps a' shows tty1~6 as expected and it shows tty7 as /usr/bin/X 
(graphical login)and 2 pts/0 running '/bin/bash' and 'ps a'. It doesn't 
list who is running any of the commands, or that any other commands are 
being run. Could this just be a bug in the 'w' command? I get the same 
users listed with a 'who' command and I see the same number of logged in 
users with the uptime command. Are these commands using the same 
underlying code?

-- 
-john
There are only 10 kinds of people,
Those who understand binary and those who don't.