title | date | tags | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
wall: Broadcast message all Linux users |
2024-02-01 |
|
wall "Hello, world!"
will send a message that looks like
Broadcast message from root@localhost (pts/0) (Sat Feb 1 14:50:14 2024):
Hello world!
to every user currently logged in to the system.
When might this be relevant? When you're working in a small team, by remoting into custom hardware, and constantly reflashing the device, to give everyone a heads up, for instance:
wall "Device will be reflashed in 5 minutes" && sleep 300 && ./reflash.sh
I'm surprised it took me over a decade of toying with Linux to learn about wall
. Nobody ever talks about it. There are almost certainly big frustrations people have with how it works, but when it's just you, your buddy, and an SSH connection - it might be just what the doctor ordered.