lastlog2(8) — Linux manual page

LASTLOG2(8)                   User Commands                   LASTLOG2(8)

NAME         top

       lastlog2 - displays date of last login for all users or a specific
       one

SYNOPSIS         top

       lastlog2 [options]

DESCRIPTION         top

       lastlog2 displays the content of the last-login database. The
       login-name, last-login-time, tty and remote-host will be printed.
       By default (no flags) all last-login entries are printed, in the
       order they were first written into the database.

       If a user has never logged in, the message **Never logged in** is
       displayed in the last-login-time column.

       Only the entries for the current users of the system are
       displayed. Other entries may exist for users that have meanwhile
       been deleted.

       Compared to lastlog(8), this command is Y2038-safe, and uses
       SQLite3 instead of a sparse file to store the information.

OPTIONS         top

       -a, --active
           Do not print entries for users who have never logged in.

       -b, --before days
           Print only the last-login records older than days.

       -C, --clear
           Clear the last-login record of a user. This option can only be
           used together with -u (--user).

       -d, --database file
           Use file as lastlog2 database.

       -i, --import file
           Import data from an old lastlog file named file. Existing
           entries in the lastlog2 database will be overwritten.

       -j, --journal [mode]
           Show the current SQLite journal mode, or set it to mode.
           Without an argument, displays the current journal mode. With
           an argument, sets the journal mode to the specified value.

           Supported modes: WAL, DELETE, TRUNCATE, PERSIST, MEMORY, OFF.

           WAL (Write-Ahead Logging) mode is recommended for
           high-concurrency scenarios as it allows readers and writers to
           operate concurrently without blocking each other. This
           significantly reduces database lock contention in environments
           with frequent SSH logins. The journal mode setting is
           persistent and only needs to be set once.

           See sqlite3(1) PRAGMA journal_mode for more details about
           journal modes.

       -r, --rename newname
           Rename the user given with -u to this newname. This option can
           only be used together with -u (--user).

       -s, --service
           Display the PAM service used to login in the last column.

       -S, --set
           Set the last-login record of a user to the current time. This
           option can only be used together with -u (--user).

       -t, --time days
           Print only last-login records more recent than days.

       -u, --user login
           Print (or modify) the last-login record of the user login.

       -h, --help
           Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
           Display version and exit.

EXAMPLES         top

       Display the current journal mode:

           lastlog2 -j

       Enable WAL mode for better concurrency (recommended for
       high-traffic servers):

           lastlog2 -j WAL

       Switch back to the default DELETE mode:

           lastlog2 -j DELETE

FILES         top

       /var/lib/lastlog/lastlog2.db
           Lastlog2 logging database file

AUTHORS         top

       lastlog2 was written by Thorsten Kukuk for liblastlog2(3).

SEE ALSO         top

       liblastlog2(3)

REPORTING BUGS         top

       For bug reports, use the issue tracker
       <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY         top

       The lastlog2 command is part of the util-linux package which can
       be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page is
       part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux utilities)
       project. Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2026-05-24. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
       was found in the repository was 2026-05-20.) If you discover any
       rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
       mail to man-pages@man7.org

util-linux 2.43.devel-739-eee2e 2026-05-24                    LASTLOG2(8)

HTML rendering created 2026-05-25 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH.