Sending message from one terminal user to another user

Question

I have a user of name x in tty1 and y in tty2. Now x wants to write some message to y and vice-versa. Now I typed in tty1 terminal write y tty2 It is showing

write:write:you have write permission turned off

write:y has messages disabled

Same thing is showing when y's sending message to x instead it is 'x' in the last line. What should I do?

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '14 at 16:20

18

It seems that y has turned off messages.

In y's terminal, type:

$ mesg
is n

meaning y does not allow others to write to y's terminal. Then you should try:

$ mesg y

Note

This option y in above command is different with y user in your case.

From man mesg:

NAME
       mesg - control write access to your terminal

SYNOPSIS
       mesg [y|n]

DESCRIPTION
       Mesg  controls the access to your terminal by others.  It's typically used to allow or disallow other users to write to your terminal
       (see write(1)).

OPTIONS
       y      Allow write access to your terminal.

       n      Disallow write access to your terminal.

       If no option is given, mesg prints out the current access state of your terminal.

answered Jun 08 '14 at 16:20

cuonglm

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It is showing Usage:mesg[y|n] and the prompt is coming then. – saptarshi nag Jun 08 '14 at 16:35
1

@saptarshinag: you must type `mesg y `. `y` is an option of `mesg`, not your user. – cuonglm Jun 08 '14 at 16:37
Oh i see,sorry for my mistake – saptarshi nag Jun 08 '14 at 16:46
It works! but after logout and again logging in one of the terminal the first message is still showing,i.e,write:write:you have write permission turned off...it is working though.Thanks! – saptarshi nag Jun 08 '14 at 16:53
@saptarshinag: Becasue in your system, message is not turn on by default. What is your OS? – cuonglm Jun 08 '14 at 17:24
It's ubuntu 12.04 – saptarshi nag Jun 09 '14 at 16:48
@saptarshinag: You should edit `/etc/default/devpts` to make it default. – cuonglm Jun 09 '14 at 16:49
I've opened the file.What edit shall I do here? – saptarshi nag Jun 09 '14 at 16:50
Look at the comment: `# Set to 600 to have 'mesg n' be the default` – cuonglm Jun 09 '14 at 16:54
Yes.So should I make it 'mesg y'? – saptarshi nag Jun 09 '14 at 16:55
@saptarshinag: change `TTYMODE` to `620` to make it enable by default. – cuonglm Jun 09 '14 at 16:57
However TTYMODE is already 620 here. – saptarshi nag Jun 09 '14 at 16:59
@saptarshinag: It's strange. Can you write message by default now? – cuonglm Jun 09 '14 at 17:00
No the problem persists. :( – saptarshi nag Jun 09 '14 at 17:04
@saptarshinag: You should ask another question for this problem, so other people can help you. I'm doing some research on it. – cuonglm Jun 09 '14 at 17:06
ok for your convenience the content of the file is # GID of the `tty' group TTYGRP=5 # Set to 600 to have `mesg n' be the default TTYMODE=620 – saptarshi nag Jun 09 '14 at 17:17

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 02 '15 at 16:11

3

If X is the usr who wants to pop a message on y machine. Fisrt take the terminal id of y machine and both should be on the same host. you can send a message like below.

Type who command and see the terminal id of y machine( for example pty/1 is the terminal ID of y)
echo "Hello" 1> pty/1(this will display the message on y machine.

edited Jan 02 '15 at 16:11

Anthon

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answered Jan 02 '15 at 15:44

Anil

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Y had to set the full path: `echo "Hi" 1> /dev/pts/1` – Pablo A Nov 04 '22 at 01:54

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 08 '14 at 16:19

You cannot do anything (unless you are the root user).

Each user can enable/disable other users ability to send messages to them using the command mesg. This command can be put into your .bashrc or .login file (depending on shell).

The default if you do nothing is to protect the user from these interrupting messages from other users.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 31 '15 at 00:47

0

> $ who
bouba    :0           2015-07-30 07:10 (:0)
jdone    pts/1        2015-07-30 20:07
bouba    pts/12       2015-07-30 20:39 (:0)
> $ mesg y
> $ write jdone

jdone its your userName and here type your message and press Entre To send

edited Jul 31 '15 at 00:47

yaegashi

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answered Jul 30 '15 at 19:44

Hajime Beddai

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Sending message from one terminal user to another user

4 Answers4