mesg(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   mesg(1)

NAME

       mesg - Permits or refuses write messages

SYNOPSIS

       mesg  [y | n ]

       [Tru64 UNIX]  The following format is supported for backward compatibility: mesg [[-]y[es] | [-]n[o] ]

STANDARDS

       Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:

       mesg:  XCU5.0

       Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.

OPERANDS

       Grants permission to other users to send messages to the terminal device.

	      [Tru64  UNIX]  You  can  optionally include a - (hyphen) before y, include es after y, or both.  Denies permission to other users to
	      send messages to the terminal device.

	      [Tru64 UNIX]  You can optionally include a - (hyphen) before n, include o after n, or both.

DESCRIPTION

       The mesg command controls whether other users on the system can send messages to you with the talk  and	write  commands.   Called  without
       arguments, mesg displays the current terminal message permission setting.

       [Tru64  UNIX]  The shell start-up procedure disallows messages by default.  You can override this default action by including the line mesg
       y in your $HOME/.profile (sh), (csh), or (csh) file.

									  Note

       [Tru64 UNIX]  This default setting described for the shell start-up procedure message permissions assumes that the shell is one started	as
       part of a login session.  If the shell got started by some other means, the default depends on what that other program has done.

       [Tru64  UNIX]  Any  user  can send messages with write if the receiving user has enabled messages.  A user with the sysadmin command autho-
       rization can send messages to any terminal.

       The terminal device affected is determined by searching for the first terminal in the sequence of devices associated with  standard  input,
       standard  output,  and  standard error, respectively.  (In other words, the affected device is not the same as the controlling terminal for
       the session.)

       [Tru64 UNIX]  Message permission has no effect on messages delivered through the electronic mail system.

       [Tru64 UNIX]  If you add mesg y to your $HOME/.profile, you will be able to receive messages from other users via the write command or  the
       talk command.  If you add mesg n to your $HOME/.profile, you will not be able to receive messages from other users via the write command or
       the talk command.

       The mesg command also accepts the current locale's equivalent of yes and no.  These equivalents	are  determined  by  the  setting  of  the
       LC_MESSAGES environment variable.  The usage message displays the current locale's equivalent of yes and no.

   Security Restrictions
       [Tru64  UNIX]  In the trusted configuration of the system, all terminal devices have owner set to the login user and group set to the pseu-
       dogroup tty.  The login command sets terminal modes to 0600 at login time, so you must explicitly use mesg y to enable access from unautho-
       rized users.

NOTES

       [Tru64  UNIX]  If your current locale defines settings other than yes or no, the mesg command does not accept yes or no as arguments.  This
       causes an error if you use a yes or no argument to mesg in your file.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned: Message reception is allowed.  Message reception is denied.  An error occurred.

EXAMPLES

       To allow only appropriately authorized users to send messages to your terminal, enter: mesg no To allow everyone  the  permission  to  send
       messages to your terminal, enter: mesg yes To determine the state of message acceptance of your terminal, enter: mesg

	      This will give one of the following responses, as appropriate: is yes is no

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The  following environment variables affect the execution of mesg: Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are
       unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used.  If any of the internationalization vari-
       ables  contain  an  invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined.  If set to a non-empty string value,
       overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables.  Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences  of  bytes
       of  text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte characters in arguments).	Determines the locale for the for-
       mat and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.  Determines the location of message catalogues  for  the  processing	of
       LC_MESSAGES.

FILES

       User profile User profile (csh) User profile (csh) Your current terminal

SEE ALSO

       Commands:  chmod(1), csh(1), Bourne shell sh(1b), POSIX shell sh(1p), stty(1), talk(1), wall(1), write(1)

       Functions:  chmod(2)

       Standards:  standards(5)

																	   mesg(1)