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Basic System Administration

Who is logged on?

The command who will return a list of all the accounts currently logged into

the system, the terminal device being used, and the time of login. With the

fuser command we might learn that fred is the account using the /cdrom path.

The who command would then tell us fred is logged into terminal ttyS3. You

can then send fred a message by typing the following:

write fred ttyS3

How long do you need to use the /cdrom mount point?

I would like to mount a new CD.

When the first line is entered, something like the following is printed at Fred's

terminal:

Message from root@your.machine.net on ttyp1 at 14:52

How long do you need to use the /cdrom mount point?

I would like to mount a new CD.

Fred may then send a message back telling of his intention to comply.

Where is the printer?

The user who sends output to the printer may wish to know where the physical

printer is located in order to retrieve their output. The System Administrator

should be able to point you to the physical printer, if that is the problem.

But, how do I actually get my output to the printer? Debian uses lpr to place

print jobs in a queue so that the printer daemon lpd can print it when the

printer becomes available. The print behavior is defined in /etc/printcap, and

Debian installs this file with the default printer configured as a generic dot 

matrix printer. This file declares the port the printer is connected to, among

other things, and can be used to send plain ASCII text to most printers. If