UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello,

First post here at the unix.com forums.

I got into unix while I did a one year crash course (if you can call a one year period a crash course) in server virtualization.

That's roughly two years ago, and since then, I've set up an Ubuntu based web server at home running everything from well, web sites to a minecraft server. I've installed several CentOS based servers, as well as a few Ubuntu ones at work, but nothing major.

As you might understand, I'm still a n00b, and trying to learn.

Anyways, enough with the introductions.

I'm interested in learning how to set up a terminal based chat with someone else running a unix dist.

It would be nice to be able to say that it's "secure" as well, but that's just a cool feature.

I've seen the tutorials on how to chat using Netcat, and that's not really what I want. Perhaps a .sh script utilizing netcat? I don't know..

Any ideas?

To chat ??!! Try with write command ..

Man Page for write (OpenSolaris Section 1) - The UNIX and Linux Forums

If it is meant to be on your local box with other users being logged in, you might do as jayan_jay suggested or use talk. Both is neither secure and limited to the local machine.
There is also ytalk which might offer some more security. I googled for you:
Secure Chat with YTalk and SSH - O'Reilly Media

Well, connecting to another persons box using SSH and then using "wall" or "write" feels like cheating. ;-)

Would ytalk be able to connect to a user on a different computer, even outside my LAN?

If so, that's awesome.
I'll look into it, thanks!

Maybe an IRC-daemon is an option for you. ngIRCd supports SSL as I read.