smbclient messages to a specific user ?

[Dejan Ilic]

I browsed thru WinNT Terminal Server documentation and indeed there is a
new command included with it : "msg"

----- Terminal server online documentation excerpt
MSG
 Sends a message to a user or users.

SYNTAX
msg {username|sessionname|sessionid|@filename|*} [/server:servername]
[/time:seconds][/v][/w][message]


/server:servername
  specifies the Terminal Server. Otherwise, the current Terminal server is
  used.
-----

This seems to be an extension to the "net send" command and has the
possibility to send messages to a specific user, including specifying
another terminal server. It seems that at least TS-servers would be able to
send to correct users if we add support to smbclient.

Simple tests with sending message on the console shows that the message
sent with "msg" looks the same on the screen as "net send". I will have to
set up a second TS to see if it realy supports sending to a specific user
without disturbing the other users, but everything is pointing in that
direction and that Microsoft/Citrix found out the same problem when
programing TS.

I will try to get a network trace, but it will take a while as it is the
first time I'm doing it for Samba needs. Is there a easy howto on network
tracing SMB somewhere ?

I would be nice to include support for this in smbclient, besides 
"broadcast messages" and a domain user (without specifying machinename ?)

 Dejan



On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Cole, Timothy D. wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:	Dejan Ilic [SMTP:dejan.ilic at home.se]
...
> >  smbclient can send to a specific (netbiosname) machine but not to a
> >  specific user on that machine. You can only supply the senders user, not
> >  receiver. This is not a problem today as we have WinNT workstations where
> >  only one user at time work, and the messages are usualy directed to that
> >  user.
>
> 	Basically the way it works is that each user that logs in registers
> a NetBIOS/WINS record:  username<03h>, with the IP of the machine they're
> logged in on.  I believe when net send sends to a specific user, it looks up
> this record, then dispatches the message to the messenger service at that
> particular IP.
> 
> 	I don't think it's any more involved than that, since it's not
> unheard of to have problems with having two users with the same name in
> different domains to each randomly get print notifications and other
> messages intended for the other.  I think this is because the domain isn't a
> component of the 0x03 name, so the most recent user to log in gets all
> messages for all users with the same name in all domains.
> 
> 	This also suggests to me that the actual windows messanging setup is
> machine-based, rather than user-based.  I have really no idea how terminal
> server copes with that, or if it even does.
> 

-- 
=====================================================================
Dejan Ilic, Tech Univ. of Linkoping, Sweden Phone:+46-(0)13-473 01 06
Email: dejan.ilic at home.se      Web: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~svedja
=====================================================================