How can I get the current user's username in Bash?

Question

I am writing a program in Bash that needs to get the user\'s username.

I have heard of a thing called whoami, but I have no idea what it does or how to use it.

W

Answer 1

When root (sudo) permissions are required, which is usually 90%+ when using scripts, the methods in previous answers always give you root as the answer.

To get the current "logged in" user is just as simple, but it requires accessing different variables: $SUDO_UID and $SUDO_USER.

They can be echoed:

echo $SUDO_UID
echo $SUDO_USER

Or assigned, for example:

myuid=$SUDO_UID
myuname=$SUDO_USER