WALL(1)				  User Commands				 WALL(1)

NAME
     wall - write a message to all users

SYNOPSIS
     wall [-n] [-t timeout] [-g group] [message | file]

DESCRIPTION
     wall  displays a message, or the contents of a file, or otherwise its stan-
     dard input, on the terminals of all currently logged in users. The	 command
     will  wrap lines that are longer than 79 characters. Short lines are white-
     space padded to have 79 characters. The command will always put a	carriage
     return and new line at the end of each line.

     Only  the	superuser can write on the terminals of users who have chosen to
     deny messages or are using a program which automatically denies messages.

     Reading from a file is refused when the invoker is not  superuser	and  the
     program is set-user-ID or set-group-ID.

OPTIONS
     -n, --nobanner
	 Suppress the banner.

     -t, --timeout timeout
	 Abandon  the write attempt to the terminals after timeout seconds. This
	 timeout must be a positive integer. The default value is  300	seconds,
	 which	is  a  legacy from the time when people ran terminals over modem
	 lines.

     -g, --group group
	 Limit printing message to members of group defined as a group argument.
	 The argument can be group name or GID.

     -h, --help
	 Display help text and exit.

     -V, --version
	 Display version and exit.

NOTES
     Some sessions, such as wdm(1x), that  have	 in  the  beginning  of	 utmp(5)
     ut_type  data  a  ':' character will not get the message from wall. This is
     done to avoid write errors.

HISTORY
     A wall command appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

SEE ALSO
     mesg(1), talk(1), write(1), shutdown(8)

REPORTING BUGS
     For       bug	 reports,	use	  the	    issue	 tracker
     <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY
     The  wall command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded
     from		  Linux			 Kernel			 Archive
     <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

util-linux 2.42.1		   2026-04-28				 WALL(1)