write to all users

Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 06:41:50 -0400
From: Tony Lawrence <tony@aplawrence.com>
Subject: Re: Broadcast message

Keith McLeod wrote:

> To the question....from time to time I have to bring down the server and
> must call each user to warn them to find a stopping point...Do you know
> of any commands that I can use to broadcast a message to all users on
> the system?  Our software support guys did not have an answer for this
> one...thought you might

The "wall" command does that.

Login as root, type "wall" <ENTER>, then whatever you want to say (multiple lines are OK), follwed by <ENTER> and then CTRL-D

Note that users may not receive the message - if they have "msg" set to "n" they won't see it and if their screen updates before they notice this, they won't see it either.

The length of the message will probably be limited to something less than 25 lines. You may be able to specify that you only want to write to a certain group; check the man/info page.

As root, you can just blast whatever you want to users terminal devices - not very friendly. At most places, somebody picks up the phone and does a loudspeaker announcement or sends email instead.

I suggest Unix for the Impatient as a good book for this sort of thing.

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