WCAT(1)

💖 WCAT(1) — the wtmp printer page, but make it a group chat 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because we're talking about wcat — the little tool whose whole job is to printout wtmp entries. yes. that's the name. that's the job. slay.

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✨ NAME ✨

wcat — printout wtmp entries 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

wcat [-w wtmp|-] [-adX[3|4]] [-s start] [-e end] [-b H[:M[:S]]] [--help]
[--version]

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🌟 SYNOPSIS 🌟 (part two, the one that's actually the description, iykyk)

Wcat gives you a genuinely easy way to recover trimmed info out of wtmp binary files. it's giving "script girlie who only needs part of the story" energy — if your script only wants partial information from those files, this is the one, fr fr.

⚠️ heads up bestie, this is the important part: wcat output is binary wtmp entries. so if you just print that straight to a terminal or screen, it might mess it up. like, chaos. visual violence. 🙈

a way better use of wcat would be:

wcat | rawtmp -w -

see? pipe it. let rawtmp do the pretty part. teamwork makes the dream work 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -w wtmp|- — read an alternate wtmp file. yes the <lavender>-</lavender> is a real value there, that's the whole thing, don't @ me.
• -X[3] — read tacacs 3.x wtmp format. 3.x era represent ✨
• -X4 — read tacacs 4.0 wtmp format. glow-up edition 💅
• -d — output time in MMM DD HH:MM:SS date format. cute and readable, obsessed.
• -a — print contents of ut_addr (if it exists) instead of ut_host. note the "if it exists" — no promises, bestie 💀
• -s start — display accounting info from start.
• -e end — display accounting info up to end.
• -b H:M:S — show accounting info from the last few hours/minutes/seconds. the "what just happened" button 🕐
• --help — print this help message.
• --version — print the version of rawtmp. (yes, it says rawtmp right there in the wcat manpage. I am simply the messenger, not the editor 💀🙈)

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

sac(8), ac(1), last(1), rawtmp(1), wtmp(5), netdate(8L)

go read those too, they're the friend group 🌈

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /var/log/wtmp — login database
• /usr/adm/radacct/.../detail — Radius accounting logs

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

the upstream author of wcat is Steve Baker (ice@mama.indstate.edu) — king behavior, respect 👑

this manpage was written by Javier Fernandez-Sanguino based on help2man for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution (but can be used by others). iconic, honestly 🫶

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🌈 bye bestie 🌈

and that's the whole vibe: wcat v1.0, (c) 2001 by Steve Baker, manpage dated January 2003, living in section WCAT(1). periodt. now go pipe something through rawtmp before you wreck your terminal 💖✨🎀