The Linux "phone" command, well known to all CERN UNIX users, is based on the ageing "Xwho" application, which is marked for replacement because of software portability issues and lack of support for the current legacy software.
The old Linux "phone" command is going to be deprecated on Linux SLC4 central services by the end of November and replaced by the new "phonebook" command, available on SLC4 and SLC5.
The command searches the CERN database for user information and displays the output according to certain defined search criteria.
The "phonebook" command does not provide a substitute for the thorough functionality of the "phone" command and does not support all of the different output formats of the old command. The main purpose of "phonebook" is to provide basic user information and cover the majority of user requests, including phone numbers, e-mail addresses, offices, login name, shell and home directory.
A recent consultation of the "phone" power users at CERN has resulted in enhanced functionality of "phonebook" to provide information about the computing accounts. We thank our collaborators for this useful improvement.
From the command line, issue "phonebook -h" or "man phonebook" to get information on all of the available options and output formats or consult the FAQ at https://espace.cern.ch/it-faqs/Lists/faqs/DispForm.aspx?ID=233.
Technically speaking, "phonebook" is a full Perl application making LDAP calls (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, i.e. a protocol used to access a directory listing) to get the data. Please note that "phonebook" does not work outside the CERN network because xldap.cern.ch is only accessible from the CERN network.
If you use scripts referring to the "phone" command, make sure that these are updated accordingly to use the "phonebook" command.
In addition, note that the purpose of this command is to provide directory information. For other tasks like local account creation, use specialized commands such as "/usr/bin/addusercern" and avoid hard coding the "phonebook" command for such purposes.
The IT Service Status Board (http://cern.ch/ssb) under "Service changes" will provide you with the latest information about the deployment of "phonebook".