[SUMMARY] talkd vs. ntalkd

From: Susan Rodriguez <SUSROD_at_HBSI.COM>
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 12:28:19 -0700

SUMMARY -

talkd is the older program and is limited in cross-platform
communication, hanging at some points (see below about byte order
dependency). ntalkd was a rework to make talk a little more flexible.

Thanks to all who replied.

susrod_at_hbsi.com


----------
From: Roy Smith[SMTP:roy_at_popmail.med.nyu.edu]
Sent: Friday, September 25, 1998 9:01 AM
To: Susan Rodriguez
Subject: Re: [Q] talkd vs. ntalkd

> The default configuration for inetd.conf is for talkd to be commented
> out, using ntalkd instead. Why is that?

The original talkd specification had (if I remember correctly) some
machine-specific aspects to it (like byte order). Ntalk was a rework of
the protocol to eliminate those problems.



Roy Smith <roy_at_popmail.med.nyu.edu>
New York University School of Medicine
550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016


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From: Arrigo Triulzi[SMTP:arrigo_at_albourne.com]
Sent: Friday, September 25, 1998 9:30 AM
To: Susan Rodriguez
Subject: Re: [Q] talkd vs. ntalkd

Susan Rodriguez scripsit:
|Just a little one -
|
|Can anyone tell me what the difference is betweent these 2 daemons?
|
|-rwxr-xr-x 2 bin bin 32768 Dec 29 1997 /usr/sbin/ntalkd
|-rwxr-xr-x 2 bin bin 32768 Dec 29 1997 /usr/sbin/talkd
|
|The default configuration for inetd.conf is for talkd to be commented
|out, using ntalkd instead. Why is that?

Long story... back in the time when SunOS was SunOS the daemon under
Suns and some BSD derivatives didn't quite speak with the daemon on
other
machines... You still see it some times when a talk hangs with
"Waiting for invitation on caller's machine".

Ciao,

Arrigo

-- 
Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo_at_albourne.com> - Systems Director
Albourne Partners Ltd. - London, UK
----------
From: 	Steve VanDevender[SMTP:stevev_at_hexadecimal.uoregon.edu]
Sent: 	Friday, September 25, 1998 10:29 AM
To: 	Susan Rodriguez
Subject: 	[Q] talkd vs. ntalkd
Susan Rodriguez writes:
 > Just a little one - 
 > 
 > Can anyone tell me what the difference is betweent these 2 daemons?  
 > 
 > -rwxr-xr-x   2 bin      bin        32768 Dec 29  1997
/usr/sbin/ntalkd
 > -rwxr-xr-x   2 bin      bin        32768 Dec 29  1997 /usr/sbin/talkd
                ^ link count
Since the link count field is 2 (there are two directory links to 
that inode), this is exactly the same file under two different names.
 > The default configuration for inetd.conf is for talkd to be commented
 > out, using ntalkd instead.  Why is that?
Probably because ntalkd is better.  It's at least more
architecture-independent than talkd; talk sessions using the old
talkd (as opposed to this new one which is backward-compatible)
would often not work between different machines running different 
OSes.
Original posting:
> ----------
> From: 	Susan Rodriguez[SMTP:SUSROD_at_HBSI.COM]
> Sent: 	Friday, September 25, 1998 8:57 AM
> To: 	alpha-osf-managers_at_ornl.gov
> Subject: 	[Q] talkd vs. ntalkd
> 
> 
> Just a little one - 
> 
> Can anyone tell me what the difference is betweent these 2 daemons?  
> 
> -rwxr-xr-x   2 bin      bin        32768 Dec 29  1997 /usr/sbin/ntalkd
> -rwxr-xr-x   2 bin      bin        32768 Dec 29  1997 /usr/sbin/talkd
> 
> The default configuration for inetd.conf is for talkd to be commented
> out, using ntalkd instead.  Why is that?
> 
> TIA
> 
> susrod_at_hbsi.com
> 

Received on Fri Sep 25 1998 - 19:28:30 NZST