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| .\" @(#)mesg.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 |
| .\" |
| .\" Fri Mar 10 20:31:02 1995, modified for standard man macros, |
| .\" faith@cs.unc.edu |
| .\" |
| .\" |
| .\" " |
| .TH MESG 1 "10 March 1995" "Linux 1.2" "Linux Programmer's Manual" |
| .SH NAME |
| mesg \- display (do not display) messages from other users |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .B mesg |
| .RB [ n | y ] |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| The |
| .B mesg |
| utility is invoked by a users to control write access others have to the |
| terminal device associated with the standard error output. If write access |
| is allowed, then programs such as |
| .BR talk (1) |
| and |
| .BR write (1) |
| may display messages on the terminal. |
| .PP |
| Traditionally, write access is allowed by default. However, as users |
| become more conscious of various security risks, there is a trend to remove |
| write access by default, at least for the primary login shell. To make |
| sure your ttys are set the way you want them to be set, |
| .B mesg |
| should be executed in your login scripts. |
| .PP |
| Options available: |
| .TP |
| .B n |
| Disallows messages. |
| .TP |
| .B y |
| Permits messages to be displayed. |
| .PP |
| If no arguments are given, |
| .B mesg |
| displays the present message status to the standard error output. |
| .PP |
| The |
| .B mesg |
| utility exits with one of the following values: |
| .TP |
| .I "\ 0" |
| Messages are allowed. |
| .TP |
| .I "\ 1" |
| Messages are not allowed. |
| .TP |
| .I "\>1" |
| An error has occurred. |
| .SH FILES |
| .I /dev/[pt]ty[pq]? |
| .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| .BR biff (1), |
| .BR talk (1), |
| .BR write (1), |
| .BR wall (1), |
| .BR login (1), |
| .BR xterm (1) |
| .SH HISTORY |
| A |
| .B mesg |
| command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. |
| |
| .SH AVAILABILITY |
| The mesg command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from |
| ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/. |
