The capability to send a message to either a single or all SSH2/Telnet sessions is available via the Session Administrator. This is useful in many situations when the system administrator needs to communicate information to one or all users usually regarding system status or maintenance. This saves the system administrator time because the need to make multiple phone calls or physically contacting the users is not necessary.
An example could be that the system administrator would want to notify all users to be logged off by a certain time due to system maintenance. Another example may be to send a message to a specific user requesting that they help another user.
To send a message to all currently active SSH2/Telnet sessions either depress or click the menu item Broadcast to display the drop down item Send. You may now select Send.
Figure 106: Broadcast a message to all telnet sessions
Note: In the figure above - even though a single session is highlighted the Broadcast message will go to ALL SSH2/Telnet sessions.
Upon selecting the menu item SEND you will see a screen similar to the figure below.
Figure 107: Enter broadcast message prompt.
Enter the text (up to a max of 320 characters) that you would like to send to all active SSH2/Telnet sessions.
Figure 108: Enter text of broadcast message.
Press
At this point you have an opportunity to abort or confirm the sending of the broadcast message.
Figure 109: Send broadcast message confirmation prompt.
Selecting will send the broadcast message to all active SSH2/Telnet sessions. The message will be displayed on the client terminal similar to the figure below. (Selecting will abort the broadcast message.)
Figure 110: Broadcast message display on client terminal.
The exact display of the broadcast message will conform to the specific terminal display characteristics in a typical manner. If the display has fewer columns, then the message will wrap at the end of each row, etc.
The broadcast message will remain on the client terminal until the message is acknowledged. The SSH2/Telnet client terminal display will return to the exact terminal display prior to the reception of the broadcast message after the broadcast message is acknowledged the message by depressing or .
If multiple broadcast messages are sent before previous messages are acknowledged, only the message acknowledged and the last broadcast message sent will be displayed to that particular SSH2/Telnet client. The intermediate messages will not be displayed to that session.
There will be times that you will want to send a message to a specific SSH2/Telnet session rather than to all the active SSH2/Telnet sessions. To send a message to a single SSH2/Telnet session you must first select the user to send the message.
Figure 111: Select a specific user to send a message.
In the case above we are selecting the user name “doug” to send the broadcast message. Once we have selected the user then we select the Session menu either by entering or clicking the menu item Session. This will display the drop down which contains the item Send Message (See Figure 112 ).
Figure 112: Send a message to a specific user - Send Message dropdown.
Upon selecting Send Message you will see a screen similar to the figure below allowing entry of the message text. Note that the User Name (doug) of the user that will receive the broadcast message is identified in the prompt.
Figure 113: Enter broadcast message prompt destined to a specific user.
Enter the text that you would like to send to user doug and press enter when the message is complete.
Figure 114: Entering the broadcast message text to a single user.
At this point you have an opportunity to abort or confirm the sending of the broadcast message.
Figure 115: Send broadcast message to a specific user confirmation prompt.
Selecting will send the broadcast message to SSH2/Telnet user doug. Selecting will abort the broadcast message. The message will be displayed on the client terminal similar to the figure below.
You can schedule a broadcast message using Georgia SoftWorks Broadcast command line utility and your favorite scheduling program.
The GSW Broadcast utility allows you to send a message to ALL active SSH2/Telnet sessions or to a specific session. You can identify the specific SSH2/Telnet session by User Name and/or IP Address. The text of the message that is sent is specified in an ASCII text file.
GS_BCast [-iip_address] [-uuser_name]Command: GS_BCast
Description: Command line utility that Broadcasts (sends) a text message to one or all active SSH2/Telnet sessions.
Syntax: GS_BCast [-iip_address] [-uuser_name]
Arguments: There are 2 optional arguments and 1 required argument.
1. [-iip_address] The –i parameter is followed by the IP address corresponding to the SSH2/Telnet session (or sessions) to send the broadcast message. (Optional)Send the broadcast message contained in the ASCII text file “systemdown.txt:” which resides in the directory “C:\mybroadcastmessages\systemdown.txt” to all telnet sessions.
GS_BCast C:\mybroadcastmessages\systemdown.txt