Hi,

Is there a way to create a private communicate to another user through
a terminal? I know wall command can broadcast the msg, but everyone
on a terminal will see it. I never try "talk" command & don't know
exactly how it works, and I think there is a way to do a 2-way
communication on a terminal. Any suggestions/ideas are appreciated.

# who

oracle pts/1 May 5 10:33 (MrA.abc.com)
root pts/2 May 5 10:40 (MrB.abc.com)

TIA,
-Chris

In news:6e843ef7-1c9f-45d6-91b1-818224f30116@i36g2000prf.googlegroups.com,
chris <lazyboy_2k@yahoo.com> typed:

> I never try "talk" command & don't know exactly how it works, ...

man talk

The carbonbased lifeform chris inspired comp.unix.shell with:
> Hi,
>
> Is there a way to create a private communicate to another user through
> a terminal? I know wall command can broadcast the msg, but everyone
> on a terminal will see it. I never try "talk" command & don't know
> exactly how it works, and I think there is a way to do a 2-way
> communication on a terminal. Any suggestions/ideas are appreciated.

The one-2-one version of wall is write(1)

> # who
>
> oracle pts/1 May 5 10:33 (MrA.abc.com)
> root pts/2 May 5 10:40 (MrB.abc.com)

So for you as root that would be 'write oracle' or 'write oracle pts/1' if the
user is logged in more than once.
The addressed user needs to run his own write to reply, so user oracle
would do 'write root pts/2'
End communication with ^D from both sides.
Talk is more like IM, but it needs a talkd daemon afaik, and it's less
generally available than write.
If a user doesn't want to be disturbed, he can use 'mesg n' to disable
write or talk from writing on his terminal.

Theo
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