Sending Messages

You can send a message to one or more terminals with the send command. You can specify a line number, a console number, or a vty number. You can also send the message to all terminals.

The following command sends the message “ hello console” to line 0:

The following command sends the message “ hello everyone” to all terminals:

If you begin the message on the same line as the send command, the first character of the message is considered to be a delimiter. You must use the same character to terminate the message. In both examples above, the delimiter was a double quotation mark (“ ).

If you press Enter without typing the second delimiter, the CLI prompts you for more message text and reminds you to complete the message with the delimiter, as shown in the following example:

If you do not begin the message on the same line as the send command, the CLI prompts you for the message text after you press Enter. The CLI does not recognize delimiters for these messages; you must enter Ctrl+z, as shown in the following example:

The receiving terminals display the message without regard to other output currently displayed on the terminal. Pagination is not affected.

The sending terminal is not affected by the state of the intended receiving terminal. For example, if the receiving terminal is flow-controlled off or at a --More-- prompt, the message is still sent, and the sending terminal is available for further commands. The receiving terminal in this case displays the message when subsequently flow-controlled on or when the user responds to the --More-- prompt.

The receiving terminal displays the message, the line number of the sender, the username of the sender if the user was authenticated through RADIUS, and the time the message was sent.