NAME
mesg
—
display (do not display) messages from
other users
SYNOPSIS
mesg |
[n | y ] |
DESCRIPTION
The mesg
utility is invoked by a user to
control write access others have to a terminal device. Write access is
allowed by default, and programs such as
talk(1) and
write(1) may
display messages on the terminal.
The first terminal device in the sequence of devices associated with standard input, standard output and standard error is affected.
The following options are available:
n
- Disallow messages.
y
- Permit messages to be displayed.
If no arguments are given, mesg
displays
the present message status to the standard output.
EXIT STATUS
The mesg
utility exits with one of the
following values:
0
- Messages are allowed.
1
- Messages are not allowed.
>1
- An error has occurred.
EXAMPLES
Disallow messages from other users to the current terminal:
mesg n
Allow messages from other users to ttyp1 (assuming you are also logged in on that terminal):
mesg y </dev/ttyp1
COMPATIBILITY
Previous versions of the mesg
utility
wrote the message status to the standard error output and affected the
terminal attached to standard error without first trying the standard input
or output devices.
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The mesg
utility conforms to
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
A mesg
command appeared in
Version 1 AT&T UNIX.