Simple messages to network computers
 

Hi Everyone,

Just a simple question about network messaging. I have a simple home network consisting of four computers, three linux boxes and one XP. I have been trying to setup a simple means of sending simple messages to the other computers on the network. For example, if I want to send a messasge like "We will be rebooting at 5:00 this afternoon. Please make sure no work is in progress at that time."

I have tried the mail command to, say, edith@edithsbox. It is returned as unknown address. I have tried the write command and I receive "write is turned off." I do not believe something as difficult as sendmail or postfix is necessary and I have seen very little in the way of HOWTOs in this regard.

Has anyone done this with success? Any help would be appreciated.

Bob

afaik there is no common basic framework to cover both oses. the fun geek game at my solaris based uni was based around the wall command (Write ALL i guess) which is just a broadcast version of write. as for the XP machine though, i *think* you're stuck with winpopup stuff, which is supposedly done via the smbclient -M command under linux, which i've never managed to work (not that i've tried much)