Whoami

Last updated
whoami
Developer(s) Bill Joy, Richard Mlynarik, Intel, Microsoft, ReactOS Contributors, Novell
Operating system Unix, Unix-like, iRMX 86, Windows, ReactOS, NetWare
Platform Cross-platform
Type Command
License BSD: BSD License
coreutils: GPLv3
iRMX 86, Windows, NetWare: Proprietary commercial software
ReactOS: GPLv2

In computing, whoami is a command found on most Unix-like operating systems, Intel iRMX 86, every Microsoft Windows [1] operating system since Windows Server 2003, and on ReactOS. It is a concatenation of the words "Who am I?" and prints the effective username of the current user when invoked.

Contents

Overview

The ReactOS whoami command ReactOS-0.4.13 whoami command 667x434.png
The ReactOS whoami command

The command has the same effect as the Unix command id -un . On Unix-like operating systems, the output of the command is slightly different from $USER because whoami outputs the username that the user is working under, whereas $USER outputs the username that was used to log in. For example, if the user logged in as John and su into root, whoami displays root and echo $USER displays John. This is because the su command does not invoke a login shell by default.

The earliest versions were created in 2.9 BSD as a convenience form for who am i, the Berkeley Unix who command's way of printing just the logged in user's identity. This version was developed by Bill Joy. [2]

The GNU version was written by Richard Mlynarik and is part of the GNU Core Utilities (coreutils).

The command is available as a separate package for Microsoft Windows as part of the GnuWin32 project [3] and the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities. [4]

On Intel iRMX 86 this command lists the currents user's identification and access rights. [5]

The command is also available as part of the Windows 2000 Resource Kit [6] and Windows XP SP2 Support Tools. [7]

The ReactOS version was developed by Ismael Ferreras Morezuelas and is licensed under the GPLv2. [8]

This command was also available as a NetWare-Command residing in the public-directory of the fileserver. It also outputs the current connections to which server the workstation is attached with which username.

Example

Unix, Unix-like

# whoami root

Intel iRMX 86

--WHOAMIUSER ID: 5ACCESS ID'S: 5, WORLD

Windows, ReactOS

C:\Users\admin>whoami workgroup\admin

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Microsoft TechNet Whoami article". Archived from the original on 2008-05-04. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
  2. ↑ 2.9.1BSD Manual Page
  3. ↑ CoreUtils for Windows
  4. ↑ Native Win32 ports of some GNU utilities
  5. ↑ iRMX™86 INTRODUCTION AND OPERATOR'S REFERENCE MANUAL For Release 6
  6. ↑ Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tool: Whoami.exe
  7. ↑ Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools
  8. ↑ "Reactos/Reactos". GitHub . 3 January 2022.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.