wall(1)

NAME

   wall - write a message to all users

SYNOPSIS

   wall [-n] [-t timeout] [message | file]

DESCRIPTION

   wall  displays  a  message, or the contents of a file, or otherwise its
   standard input, on the terminals of all currently logged in users.  The
   command  will  wrap  lines  that  are longer than 79 characters.  Short
   lines are whitespace padded to have 79 characters.   The  command  will
   always put a carriage return and new line at the end of each line.

   Only  the superuser can write on the terminals of users who have chosen
   to deny messages or are using  a  program  which  automatically  denies
   messages.

   Reading  from  a  file is refused when the invoker is not superuser and
   the program is suid or sgid.

OPTIONS

   -n, --nobanner
          Suppress the banner.

   -t, --timeout timeout
          Abandon  the  write  attempt  to  the  terminals  after  timeout
          seconds.   This timeout must be a positive integer.  The default
          value is 300 seconds, which is  a  legacy  from  the  time  when
          people ran terminals over modem lines.

   -V, --version
          Display version information and exit.

   -h, --help
          Display help text and exit.

NOTES

   Some  sessions,  such  as  wdm,  that  have in the beginning of utmp(5)
   ut_type data a ':' character will not get the message from wall.   This
   is done to avoid write errors.

SEE ALSO

   mesg(1), talk(1), write(1), shutdown(8)

HISTORY

   A wall command appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

AVAILABILITY

   The  wall  command  is  part of the util-linux package and is available
   from Linux Kernel  Archive  ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-
   linux/.

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Free and Open Source Software