'w' Shows 2 users lists one

[Derek Broughton]

Jonas Norlander wrote:

> 2008/9/1 John Hubbard <ender8282 at yahoo.com>:
>> 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'. 

So that's exactly what you'd expect - tty7 is X, pts/0 is a terminal, so
runs a shell, and the shell is running the 'ps' command that gave you the
output.  Nothing whatsoever about another user.

>> It doesn't list who is running any of the commands,
> 
> "ps au" will give the users.

Yes, but it sounds like he's getting exactly what you'd expect for one user,
anyway.  I haven't a clue why 'w' says there's another user.
-- 
derek