Cannot use write

Sefyir · 04-20-2017, 07:18 PM

Using raspberry pi 3 Raspbian with Pixel

I'm getting a fairly common error with write

Code:

write: user has messages disabled

The solution is to check with mesg and ensure it shows y

But this doesn't seem to work... for all users but my admin one.

For example:

With user user

Code:

$ mesg
is y
$ write user
write: user has messages disabled

However, on my "admin" account (with sudo privileges) write does work. I'm not sure why?

With user admin

Code:

$ mesg
is y
write admin
Message from admin@hostname on pts/0 at 17:15 ...

What am I missing? Every guide focuses on getting mesg to be set to y, which it already is.

frankbell · 04-20-2017, 07:41 PM

I've not need to use "write," but you might take a look at man mesg.

From the mesg man page:

Quote:

DESCRIPTION
Mesg controls the access to your terminal by others. It's typically
used to allow or disallow other users to write to your terminal (see
write(1)).

OPTIONS
y Allow write access to your terminal.

n Disallow write access to your terminal.

If no option is given, mesg prints out the current access state of your
terminal.

AwesomeMachine · 04-20-2017, 07:41 PM

I think it says that because mesg is automatically set to "n" unless the other user is logged in. It also doesn't work with ssh users.