Help on Talk utility

bicolano53 · 10-07-2005, 11:00 PM

Hi, Guys, am using RHL Enterprise 3. I would like to setup a way for interactive - two-way communication using the command line interface..I read about TALK - an unix talk utility much like instant messenger..
I typed the following commands in terminal (logon as root)

# talk userid@10.0.03

my teminal screen splits in to two screens and the top displays the following msg.
"checking for invitation on caller's machine"

When I press any key -- the terminal window closes..

Did I miss anything..thanks

XavierP · 10-09-2005, 09:19 AM

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

archtoad6 · 10-10-2005, 03:03 PM

By "read about TALK", do you mean "RTFM"? When you do, pay attention to the "See Also" & RThoseFM's also.

I suspect your problem is due to:

The daemon, talkd, is not installed. It is/can be a separate package. If you don't have talkd installed, add it or gtalk.
mesg is blocking communication -- run "mesg y" at both ends of the prospective connection.
xterm issues -- talk is designed for the console.
Other, incl. port & firewall issues.

Was there a transient message on your screen before the "checking for invitation on caller's machine", perhaps accompanied by a "[ Press any key to exit ]" in the middle of the screen? That would explain why it exited: "When I press any key -- the terminal window closes.."
If so, what was the msg.?

Are you running in a "real" (Alt-Fn) console?

Are you trying to connect inside your LAN?

bicolano53 · 10-26-2005, 11:49 PM

Yes,there is an interim message : error on read from talk deamon - connection refused - Press any key"..
this mess is displayed for a few secs. then this next mess appears. . "checking for invitation on caller's machine" ..
How do I check if the Talk daemon is installed?
yes. am connecting to another host on the same LAN.
I already typed "mesg y" on both machines but I still got the same error message..
thanks

archtoad6 · 11-04-2005, 08:53 AM

Sorry to take so long to get back to you, I had a hard drive failure in my firewall & had to rebuild the hardware.

Caveat: I left RH 8 for Debian about 2 yrs ago; however, I do have shell acct. on an FC3 box to test my answers.

To check if the talk daemon is installed on the target machine, open a console or xterm (on it) & try:

Code:

rpm -q talkd

To see if it's running:

Code:

/sbin/service  | grep talk

or

Code:

/sbin/service --status-all  | less