term-utils/wall.1

   1 .\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
   2 .\" All rights reserved.
   3 .\"
   4 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
   5 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
   6 .\" are met:
   7 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
   8 .\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
   9 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
  10 .\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
  11 .\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  12 .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
  13 .\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
  14 .\"     This product includes software developed by the University of
  15 .\"     California, Berkeley and its contributors.
  16 .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
  17 .\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
  18 .\"    without specific prior written permission.
  19 .\"
  20 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
  21 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
  22 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
  23 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
  24 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
  25 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
  26 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
  27 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
  28 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
  29 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
  30 .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
  31 .\"
  32 .\"     @(#)wall.1      6.5 (Berkeley) 4/23/91
  33 .\"
  34 .TH WALL "1" "August 2013" "util-linux" "User Commands"
  35 .SH NAME
  36 wall \- write a message to all users
  37 .SH SYNOPSIS
  38 .B wall
  39 .RB [ \-n ]
  40 .RB [ \-t
  41 .IR timeout ]
  42 .RB [ \-g
  43 .IR group ]
  44 .RI [ message " | " file ]
  45 .SH DESCRIPTION
  46 .B wall
  47 displays a
  48 .IR message ,
  49 or the contents of a
  50 .IR file ,
  51 or otherwise its standard input, on the terminals of all currently logged
  52 in users.  The command will wrap lines that are longer than 79 characters.
  53 Short lines are whitespace padded to have 79 characters.  The command will
  54 always put a carriage return and new line at the end of each line.
  55 .PP
  56 Only the superuser can write on the terminals of users who have chosen to
  57 deny messages or are using a program which automatically denies messages.
  58 .PP
  59 Reading from a
  60 .I file
  61 is refused when the invoker is not superuser and the program is
  62 set-user-ID or set-group-ID.
  63 .SH OPTIONS
  64 .TP
  65 .BR \-n , " \-\-nobanner"
  66 Suppress the banner.
  67 .TP
  68 .BR \-t , " \-\-timeout " \fItimeout\fR
  69 Abandon the write attempt to the terminals after \fItimeout\fR seconds.
  70 This \fItimeout\fR must be a positive integer.  The default value
  71 is 300 seconds, which is a legacy from the time when people ran terminals over
  72 modem lines.
  73 .TP
  74 .BR \-g , " \-\-group " \fIgroup\fR
  75 Limit printing message to members of group defined as a
  76 .I group
  77 argument.  The argument can be group name or GID.
  78 .TP
  79 .BR \-V , " \-\-version"
  80 Display version information and exit.
  81 .TP
  82 .BR \-h , " \-\-help"
  83 Display help text and exit.
  84 .SH NOTES
  85 Some sessions, such as wdm, that have in the beginning of
  86 .BR utmp (5)
  87 ut_type data a ':' character will not get the message from
  88 .BR wall .
  89 This is done to avoid write errors.
  90 .SH SEE ALSO
  91 .BR mesg (1),
  92 .BR talk (1),
  93 .BR write (1),
  94 .BR shutdown (8)
  95 .SH HISTORY
  96 A
  97 .B wall
  98 command appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
  99 .SH AVAILABILITY
 100 The wall command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 101 .UR https://\:www.kernel.org\:/pub\:/linux\:/utils\:/util-linux/
 102 Linux Kernel Archive
 103 .UE .