# talk, msgs, mesg how to enable?



## Gwailo (Jun 25, 2002)

I've got multiple users set up on my OS X iMac to login remotely so they can practice their linux skills.

I've added msgs and mail to their and to my login scripts so they can see system messages at login. However, I've not been able to SEND any messages to people. I've found this because when i try "mail nebu" and then write a message and end with a period, mail returns no errors but nebu never receives it.

How do I configure "mail" and "talk" so that other users can use it to send mail and chat with online users?


----------



## lethe (Jun 25, 2002)

here is a howto thread for that stuff.

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=14983&highlight=talk


----------



## Gwailo (Jun 27, 2002)

I knew about ``mesg`` but not ``wall`` (short form of _write all_?) which is _exactly_ what I needed.

Thanks a bunch testuser!

PS Is there a way I can disable ordinary users from ``mesg n``-ing? For example, putting ``mesg y`` into .login? And if ``mesg n`` has been issued, and I send a broadcast message, will they receive it when they ``mesg y`` (i.e., are broadcast messages cached)?


----------



## scruffy (Jun 27, 2002)

testuser - any hints on getting 'talk' to work on 10.1.x?

I had it working on 10.0.x, but now it refuses to work.  Using talk, I get this output:

[No connection yet]
[Target machine does not recognize us]

Using ytalk, it's this:

#########################################
                   #              Ytalk Error              #
                   #                                       #
                   #  mark@localhost#ttyp5 not logged in   #
                   #                                       #
                   #########################################

(even though I am logged in - 'who' shows me, at any rate...)

I have messages on, the relevant line in /etc/inetd.conf is:
ntalk   dgram   udp     wait    root    /usr/libexec/tcpd      /usr/libexec/ntalkd

'ps' shows an ntalk process is started up alright, but I'm never contacted on ttyp5.

Any thoughts?


----------



## scruffy (Jun 28, 2002)

I'm not using ntalk between machines.  I'm logging in via ssh, and then doing a 'talk user' or 'talk user@localhost' (or 'talk user tty' or 'talk user@localhost tty' or 'ytalk user#tty' or 'ytalk user@localhost#tty').  All give me the same errors.


----------

