confer
PURPOSE
Provides an on-line conferencing system.
SYNOPSIS
confer [ [ - ] ~ ] [ -v ] [ -nconferencename ] [user[ @ttyxx]] ...
joinconf conferencename
DESCRIPTION
The confer command sets up an on-line, written conference
among logged-in users on your local node. You start a
conference by running the confer command, specifying the
users and/or work stations (@ttynum) that are part of the
conference. If the users you specify are logged in and
their work stations are writable, they are requested to
join the conference by using the joinconf command. The
other conferees are informed as each user joins the con-
ference.
Once you join a conference, everything you enter at your
work station displays at all other work stations that are
part of the conference. This display continues until you
press Ctrl-D to end your own active participation or
until you excuse a conference participant, thus stopping
the display of your contributions at his work station.
(See page .)
To prevent the confusion that can be caused by several
conferees typing at the same time, users should follow
some agreed on protocol. The following is one recom-
mended protocol:
o In order to take the floor, a user presses the Enter
key before entering his contribution. This notifies
other participants that he has the floor because his
name displays in brackets at their respective work
stations.
o A user is presumed to have the floor until he relin-
quishes it by entering a blank line.
o If two or more users try to claim the floor at the
same time, the last person to do so (the one whose
name appears last), is assumed to have the floor.
The others should immediately relinquish the floor by
typing single blank lines.
The confer command gives each conference a unique name,
normally the name of the conference leader, with addi-
tional letters added to it, if necessary. The conference
leader can override this default by specifying the -n
flag.
A user who is logged in to more than one work station is
normally written to on all of them, unless the conference
leader specifies one of the work stations with the
@ttynum flag when he invokes confer.
A conferee ends his active participation by pressing
Ctrl-D. This action causes his name and the word "BYE"
to display at the work stations of the other conference
participants. However, the contributions of the other
participants will continue to display at his work station
until the other participants each excuse him.
You can run shell commands from within a conference by
simply prefixing them with a | (vertical bar) or an "!"
(exclamation point). Using the exclamation point causes
the command to run in the normal fashion; the output dis-
plays only at the work station that runs it. Using the
vertical bar, however, causes the command and all of its
standard output and standard error output to become part
of the conference, visible to all conferees.
Three subcommands are run directly by confer and
joinconf. These are:
!excuse name . . . Excuses the specified conferees from
the conference. No further confer-
ence material displays at these work
stations.
!~ Makes all contributions from the
user who issues it off the record
until he issues the !~~ subcommand.
!~~ Cancels a preceding !~, placing the
user's remarks back on the record.
Unless the conference leader makes a conference off the
record by specifying the ~ flag, confer makes a tran-
script of all conference proceedings. When a participant
leaves the conference, he is asked whether he wants a
transcript. If he does, he is mailed a copy when the
conference concludes. Any participant can make a comment
off the record in a conference that is otherwise on the
record by beginning the line with a ~ (tilde).
Conference contributions are normally transmitted one
line at a time. If the conference leader specifies the
-v flag, transmission occurs one character at a time. As
this mode of transmission sends all user typing errors
and hesitations and imposes a considerably larger load on
the system, its use is strongly discouraged.
FLAGS
-nname Assigns name to the conference transcript. The
conference name is used by those joining the
conference so that they get into the right one.
The name of the user who starts the conference
is the default conference name.
-v Transmits conference messages one character at a
time.
~ Sets up the conference off the record, that is,
no transcript of the proceedings is recorded.
@ttynum Specifies a particular work station for a
conferee, if a user is also specified (for
example, "tty1"). This is useful if a conferee
is logged in to more than one work station. If
no user is specified, this flag invites any user
logged in to the specified work station to par-
ticipate.
EXAMPLES
1. To start a conference with "steve" and "rachel":
confer steve rachel
Running the confer command makes you the conference
leader, so your login name is also the name of the
conference. confer sends "steve" and "rachel" a
message inviting them to join your conference and
giving them the conference name.
2. To specify work stations that may join the confer-
ence:
confer steve@tty5 rachel @tty10
Suppose that "steve" is logged in at the work
stations tty3, tty4, and tty5, and that "rachel" is
logged in at tty7 and tty8. This command invites
"steve" to join the conference at work station tty5
only, invites "rachel" to join at either work station
she is using or at both, and invites whoever is
logged in at tty10 to join.
3. To join a conference named "paula":
joinconf paula
Now the text you type becomes part of the dialog:
prefixed with your name, displayed at each partic-
ipant's work station, and recorded in the transcript
of the conference.
4. Suppose that you start a conference by entering the
command given in Example 2, and the person using
tty10 decides not to join the conference. If you do
nothing, this person also sees the dialog, even
though not participating in it. To prevent this from
happening, each person that has joined the conference
must enter:
!excuse @tty10
Similarly, if "rachel" decides to join the conference
from tty7, the discussion is also displayed at her
other work station, tty8, unless everyone enters:
!excuse rachel@tty8
rachel should enter this, too, but only at tty7, the
work station she is using for the conference.
5. To make a single-line statement off the record:
~Coffee and donuts at my place.
confer displays lines beginning with ~ (tilde) at
participants' work stations, but does not include
them in the record of the conference.
To make a multiple-line statement:
!~
Everyone is invited
to my place after the conference
for coffee and donuts.
!~~
6. To run a shell command privately, without leaving the
conference:
!li
This lists the current directory without including
the li command or its output in the conference.
7. To include the output of a shell command in the dis-
cussion:
|cat notes.conf
This lists the contents of the file "notes.conf" at
each participant's work station, and includes it in
the conference record.
8. To send command output to others, off the record:
!~
|cat notes.conf
!~~
9. To leave the conference, press Ctrl-D. If your user
name is "paula", then after you press Ctrl-D, the
message: "[paula] BYE" is sent to the other partic-
ipants. The rest of the discussion continues to
appear at your work station until each of the other
participants enters:
!excuse paula
FILES
/etc/utmp List of logged-in users.
/dev/tty?? Work station names.
/tmp/*.cnf User transcript files.
/tmp/*.ln? Links to main conference file.
/tmp/*.mls Transcript mailing list.
RELATED INFORMATION
The following command: "write."