TALK(1)                    OpenBSD Reference 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 ter-
     minal 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'.

     When first called, talk sends the message
           Message from Talk_Daemon@localhost...
           talk: connection requested by your_name@your_machine.
           talk: respond with: talk your_name@your_machine

     to the user you wish to talk to. At this point, the recipient of the mes-
     sage should reply by typing

           talk  your_name@your_machine

     It doesn't matter from which machine the recipient replies, as long as
     the login name is the same.  If the machine is not the one to which the
     talk request was sent, it is noted on the screen.  Once communication is
     established, the two parties may type simultaneously, with their output
     appearing in separate windows.  Typing control-L `^L' will cause the
     screen to be reprinted, while your erase, kill, and word kill characters
     will behave normally.  To exit, just type your interrupt character; talk
     then moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen and restores the termi-
     nal to its previous state.

     Permission to talk may be denied or granted by use of the mesg(1) com-
     mand.  At the outset talking is allowed.  Certain commands, in particular
     nroff(1) and pr(1),  disallow messages 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)

BUGS
     The version of talk(1) released with 4.3BSD uses a protocol that is in-
     compatible with the protocol used in the version released with 4.2BSD.

HISTORY
     The talk command appeared in 4.2BSD.

OpenBSD 2.6                      June 6, 1993                                1