Package: bsdutils Version: 1:2.12p-4sarge1 Severity: normal
Administrators like root typically use wall to notify users of ongoing maintenance etc. operations. man wall(1) says: "Wall displays the contents of file or, by default, its standard input, on the terminals of all currently logged in users." However, KDE tools for example don't update utmp, so w, wall and write commands don't reach KDE and other users with kwrited running (for example http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=103864 ). A simple (but perhaps dangerous?) workaround is for root to write directly into the users pts, e.g.: # for f in /dev/pts/* ; do echo Running apt-get for updates in 10 \ minutes. Beware for crashing openoffice, mozilla etc. after that. > $f ; done Should this workaround be documented somewhere like wall manpages or Debian reference or KDE help? If the utmp-issue is unsolvable, should wall also try write to all existing pts's? As suggested in http://groups.google.com/group/sfnet.atk.linux/msg/aa1619fdf7d0a8a7 root can also play with X users Xauthority file and use xmessage to deliver the same message, but this seems a lot tricker than wall. I'd be happy to know if there are other more simple workarounds to this messaging problem. Thanks, -Mikko -- System Information: Debian Release: 3.1 Architecture: i386 (i586) Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-386 Locale: LANG=C, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (charmap=ISO-8859-15) Versions of packages bsdutils depends on: ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]