talkd(8) System Manager's Manual talkd(8)NAME
talkd, ntalkd - The remote communications server for the talk command
SYNOPSIS
talkd
ntalkd
DESCRIPTION
The talkd server notifies a user or callee when a client or caller wants to initiate a conversation. The talkd daemon sets up the conver-
sation if the callee accepts the invitation. The caller initiates a conversation by executing the talk command and specifying the callee.
The callee accepts the invitation by executing the talk command specifying the caller.
The talkd daemon listens at a socket for a LOOK_UP request from a local or remote talk client. On receiving a LOOK_UP request, talkd scans
its internal invitation table for an entry that pairs the client (the local or remote talk process) with a caller.
If an entry exists in the talkd daemon's international invitation table, the talkd daemon assumes that the client process is the callee.
The talkd daemon returns the appropriate rendezvous address to the talk process for the callee. The callee process then establishes a
stream connection with the caller process.
If an entry does not exist in the invitation table, the talkd daemon assumes that the client process is the caller. The talkd daemon then
receives the client process's ANNOUNCE request. When talkd receives the ANNOUNCE request, talkd broadcasts an invitation on the console of
the remote host where the callee is logged in, unless the caller specifies a particular tty. At approximately 1-minute intervals, talkd
rebroadcasts the invitation until either the invitation is answered by the callee or the call is canceled by the caller.
Debugging messages are sent to syslogd(8). For further information on the files used by this daemon, see the syslogd command.
FILES
Specifies the command path Defines Internet socket assignments Contains data about users who are currently logged in
NOTES
The Tru64 UNIX version of talkd uses the talk 4.3BSD protocol. This command is sometimes referred to as ntalkd. It is not compatible with
4.2BSD versions of talk.
RELATED INFORMATION
Commands: inetd(8), syslogd(8), talk(1) delim off
talkd(8)
Check Out this Related Man Page
TALK(1) BSD General Commands Manual TALK(1)NAME
talk -- talk to another user
SYNOPSIS
talk person [ttyname]
DESCRIPTION
Talk is a visual communication program which copies lines from your terminal to that of another user.
Options available:
person If you wish to talk to someone on your own machine, then person is just the person's login name. If you wish to talk to a user on
another host, then person is of the form 'user@host'.
ttyname If you wish to talk to a user who is logged in more than once, the ttyname argument may be used to indicate the appropriate terminal
name, where ttyname is of the form 'ttyXX' or 'pts/X'.
When first called, talk contacts the talk daemon on the other user's machine, which sends the message
Message from TalkDaemon@his_machine...
talk: connection requested by your_name@your_machine.
talk: respond with: talk your_name@your_machine
to that user. At this point, he then replies by typing
talk your_name@your_machine
It doesn't matter from which machine the recipient replies, as long as his login name is the same. Once communication is established, the
two parties may type simultaneously; their output will appear in separate windows. Typing control-L (^L) will cause the screen to be
reprinted. The erase, kill line, and word erase characters (normally ^H, ^U, and ^W respectively) will behave normally. To exit, just type
the interrupt character (normally ^C); talk then moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen and restores the terminal to its previous
state.
As of netkit-ntalk 0.15 talk supports scrollback; use esc-p and esc-n to scroll your window, and ctrl-p and ctrl-n to scroll the other win-
dow. These keys are now opposite from the way they were in 0.16; while this will probably be confusing at first, the rationale is that the
key combinations with escape are harder to type and should therefore be used to scroll one's own screen, since one needs to do that much less
often.
If you do not want to receive talk requests, you may block them using the mesg(1) command. By default, talk requests are normally not
blocked. Certain commands, in particular nroff(1), pine(1), and pr(1), may block messages temporarily in order to prevent messy output.
FILES
/etc/hosts to find the recipient's machine
/var/run/utmp to find the recipient's tty
SEE ALSO mail(1), mesg(1), who(1), write(1), talkd(8)BUGS
The protocol used to communicate with the talk daemon is braindead.
Also, the version of talk(1) released with 4.2BSD uses a different and even more braindead protocol that is completely incompatible. Some
vendor Unixes (particularly those from Sun) have been found to use this old protocol. There's a patch from Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche
(jmseyas@dit.upm.es) which makes talk/talkd, if compiled with -DSUN_HACK, compatible with SunOS/Solaris' ones. It converts messages from one
protocol to the other.
Old versions of talk may have trouble running on machines with more than one IP address, such as machines with dynamic SLIP or PPP connec-
tions. This problem is fixed as of netkit-ntalk 0.11, but may affect people you are trying to communicate with.
HISTORY
The talk command appeared in 4.2BSD.
Linux NetKit (0.17) November 24, 1999 Linux NetKit (0.17)