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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
  y   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.

  n   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), .cshrc (csh), or .login (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 authorization 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 pseudogroup
  tty.	The login command sets terminal modes to 0600 at login time, so you
  must explicitly use mesg y to enable access from unauthorized 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 .profile file.

EXIT STATUS
  The following exit values are returned:

  0   Message reception is allowed.

  1   Message reception is denied.

  >1  An error occurred.

EXAMPLES
   1.  To allow only appropriately authorized users to send messages to your
       terminal, enter:
	    mesg no

   2.  To allow everyone the permission to send messages to your terminal,
       enter:
	    mesg yes

   3.  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:

  LANG
      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
      variables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of
      the variables had been defined.

  LC_ALL
      If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the
      other internationalization variables.

  LC_CTYPE
      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).

  LC_MESSAGES
      Determines the locale for the format and contents of diagnostic
      messages written to standard error.

  NLSPATH
      Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of
      LC_MESSAGES.

FILES
  $HOME/.profile
      User profile

  .cshrc
      User profile (csh)

  .login
      User profile (csh)

  /dev/tty*
      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)

Index for Section 1

Alphabetical listing for M

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