Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual (G06.28+, H06.05+)

wall(1) OSS Shell and Utilities Reference Manual
NAME
wall - Sends a message to all users
SYNOPSIS
wall [file]
DESCRIPTION
The wall command takes its input from the contents of file if you specify it; if you do not specify
file, wall reads from the standard input file until either you press the End-of-File key sequence or
an end-of-file is encountered. wall then sends that input as a message to all users who are logged
in. The message is preceded by the heading:
Broadcast Message from
user@node (tty)athh:mm
where user is the user invoking wall, node and tty are the node and terminal of that user, and
hh:mm is the time of the message.
To override any protections other users have set up, you must be operating with appropriate
privileges. Typically, the system administrator uses
wall to warn all users of an impending sys-
tem shutdown.
The wall command sends messages only to the local node.
Operands
file Specifies the pathname of a file to be used as the source of the broadcast mes-
sage.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
This command conforms to the XPG4 Version 2 specification.
The following features are extensions to the XPG4 Version 2 specification:
• The alternate message source file can be specified.
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