---
name: "inetutils-talk"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "inetutils-talk"
version: "2:2.6-3+deb13u3"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/inetutils-talk"
---

# inetutils-talk(1)

talk to another user

## NAME

**talk** – talk to another user

## SYNOPSIS

**talk** *person* \[*ttyname*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**Talk** is a visual communication program which copies lines from your terminal to that of another user.

Options available:

- *person*

  If you wish to talk to someone on your own machine, then *person* is just the person's login name.  If you wish to talk to a user on another host, then *person* is of the form ‘user@host’.

- *ttyname*

  If you wish to talk to a user who is logged in more than once, the *ttyname* argument may be used to indicate the appropriate terminal name, where *ttyname* is of the form ‘ttyXX’.

When first called, **talk** sends the message

```
Message from TalkDaemon@his_machine...
talk: connection requested by your_name@your_machine.
talk: respond with: talk your_name@your_machine
```

to the user you wish to talk to. At this point, the recipient of the message should reply by typing

```
talk  your_name@your_machine
```

It doesn't matter from which machine the recipient replies, as long as his login-name is the same.  Once communication is established, the two parties may type simultaneously, with their output appearing in separate windows.  Typing control-L ‘^L’ will cause the screen to be reprinted, while your erase, kill, and word kill characters will behave normally.  To exit, just type your interrupt character; **talk** then moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen and restores the terminal to its previous state.

Permission to talk may be denied or granted by use of the [mesg(1)](/mesg/1.md) command.  At the outset talking is allowed.  Certain commands, in particular [nroff(1)](/nroff/1.md) and [pr(1)](/pr/1.md), disallow messages in order to prevent messy output.

## FILES

- */etc/hosts*

  to find the recipient's machine

- */run/utmp*

  to find the recipient's tty

## SEE ALSO

[mail(1)](/mail/1.md), [mesg(1)](/mesg/1.md), [who(1)](/who/1.md), [write(1)](/write/1.md)

## BUGS

The version of [talk(1)](/talk/1.md) released with 4.3BSD uses a protocol that is incompatible with the protocol used in the version released with 4.2BSD.

## HISTORY

The **talk** command appeared in 4.2BSD.