MESG(1)MESG(1)NAMEmesg - permit or deny messages
SYNOPSISmesg [ y | n ]
DESCRIPTIONmesg with argument n forbids messages via write(1) , talk or other
utilities by revoking non-user write permission on the user's terminal.
The terminal affected is determined by searching for the first terminal
in the sequence of devices associated with standard input, standard
output and standard error, respectively. mesg with argument y reinstates
permission. All by itself, mesg reports the current state without
changing it. Processes with appropriate privileges may be able to send
messages to the terminal independently of the current state.
OPTIONS
None.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported in the POSIX locale:
y grant permission to other users to send messages to the terminal
device
n deny permission to other users to send messages to the terminal
device
STDIN
Not used.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables affect the execution of mesg:
LANG provide a default value for the internationalization variables that
are unset or null. If LANG is unset or null the corresponding value
from the implementation-specific default locale will be used. If any
of the internationalization variables contains an invalid setting,
the utility will behave as if none of the variables had been
defined.
LC_ALL
if set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the
other internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE
determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of
text data as characters (for example, single - as opposed to multi-
byte - characters in arguments).
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MESG(1)MESG(1)
LC_MESSAGES
determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and
contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
NLSPATH
determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
LC_MESSAGES.
STDOUT
If no operand is specified, mesg displays the current terminal state in
an unspecified format.
STDERR
Used donly for diagnostic messages.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 receiving messages is allowed
1 receiving messages is not allowed
>1 an error occurred
FILES
/dev/tty*
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore language-specific message file
[See LANG on environ(5).]
SEE ALSOwrite(1).
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 if messages are receivable, 1 if not, 2 on error.
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