"Is there any substituation of last command or script syntax which can be used as a user. As far I know the "last" command is being used to display information about previous logins. A member of adm group or the user adm can execute it only.

Thanks in advance for your usual help.

Ghazi

I'm not too sure I follow - if you want to rerun the last command each shell has a different syntax to allow this - the last command shows a history of logins, not commands. Some OS's provide the lastcomm command if accounting is enabled, although this may require superuser privileges.

You can look into fc -e -, I always alias this (if not pre-aliased) to r in Bourne-type shells thusly:

alias r='fc -e -'

Then you can do stuff like

$ r ls
ls -la /my/dir


which will execute the last command in your history (providing your shell supports history) starting with "ls".

As I say, each shell supports differing history syntax and functionality, please post the output of
echo $0
echo $SHELL
uname -a
plus a further rundown of your exact requirements for a more detailed solution.

EDIT: Looking back at your OP, do you want to run last as a user that doesn't have the privilege to run the command? If so sudo may be the solution.

Cheers
ZB

I apprecate your quick response.

I am hp and using tcsh. I am not looking for whodo command output (output from the who, ps and acctcom) rather I am ONLY interested to find out when particular user was last time logged on to the system. Is there any way I can find out this if logged in as a develper (not root).

Thanks,
Ghazi

last is supposed to be a user command. I just tried it on HP-UX 11.0 and it works fine for ordinary users.

I just tried it telnet-ing into the HP-UX 10.20 box at work and last works fine, also; I tried it on a bunch of Linux boxes, Solaris 9, and UNICOS and it works without a hitch.

Cheers
ZB

Try using the full path: /usr/bin/last. If you still have trouble, tell us exactly what happens.

What could be the reason it is not working for me?

Thanks.