ARCHIVED: In Unix, how do I send a brief interactive message to someone?
Using the msg command
On some Unix computers, you can send a quick message using
the msg
command. To send a message, enter:
msg username@host This is the message being sent
Replace username@host
with the address of the person to
which you want to send the message, and This is the message
being sent
with your message.
For example, to send the message "Hey Darth, do you have my
printouts?" to the user
dvader@deathstar.empire.gov
, at the Unix
prompt, enter:
msg dvader@deathstar.empire.gov Hey Darth, do you have my printouts?
The following message will appear on your recipient's screen:
yourname@yourhost.yourdomain: Hey Darth, do you have my printouts?
Your address would replace yourname@yourhost.yourdomain
.
Some Unix computers cannot receive msg
messages. At
Indiana University, most UITS hosts are not configured to
do so. Also, msg
is not installed on some hosts, and you
may need to use the write
command instead.
Using the write command
You can also use the write
command to send a message. This
command can send several lines of text to another user logged into the same
Unix computer. Here is an example of the write
command:
write fred Hey fred! Did you bring your homework with you? ^D
The ^D
stands for Ctrl-d
. Press
this to end the write
message.
Below is a sample of the output of write
:
Message from yourname@yourhost.yourdomain on ttyr2 at 14:13 ... I don't have my homework with me My dog ate it <EOF>
EOF
stands for "End Of File" and signifies the end of the
message being sent.
Turning messages on and off
The msg
and write
commands won't work if a user
is refusing messages. The mesg
command will turn on or off
the ability to receive messages. To turn on messages, enter:
mesg y
To turn off messages, enter:
mesg n
At Indiana University, for personal or departmental Linux or Unix systems support, see Get help for Linux or Unix at IU.
This is document acjl in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2018-01-18 09:24:52.