78 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
This file explains how to use an existing Zephyr service once you've
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built and installed the Zephyr distribution. To learn how to build
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and install Zephyr, read the file INSTALL. To learn how to set up
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Zephyr service at a site, read the file OPERATING.
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First, before you can do anything else, your client machine must be
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running zhm from the local system binary directory (/etc/athena/zephyr
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if you built Zephyr with --enable-athena, /usr/local/sbin/zephyr if
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you installed Zephyr in /usr/local and didn't use --enable-athena).
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Only one copy of zhm can be running on a given machine, and it can be
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started by any user. If you're using a machine you don't administer,
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you may want to check if the machine is configured to start up zhm
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automatically at boot time.
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Once you have zhm running, you can start receiving zephyrgrams by
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running the command:
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zwgc
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"zwgc" stands for "Zephyr WindowGram Client". If you built Zephyr
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with X support and are using an X display, you will receive messages
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as windows on your screen (click on them to get rid of them);
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otherwise, you will receive messages in your terminal as text. Read
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the man page on zwgc to find out how to configure it using the
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.zwgc.desc file in your home directory.
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You can send messages to another user with:
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zwrite username
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To write to groups of users, you must agree on a "class" and/or
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"instance" to write to (this will be explained in greater detail
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below). At MIT, most users communicate in private groups via classes.
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Suppose a bunch of people wanted to communicate on a class "newclass".
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They would all subscribe to the class with the command:
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zctl add newclass \* \*
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and send messages with:
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zwrite -c newclass
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The "zctl add" command adds the subscription to the .zephyr.subs file
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in your home directory, so that you will automatically be subscribed
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to the class the next time you run zwgc. If you just want to
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subscribe without adding the subscription to your .zephyr.subs file,
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use "zctl sub" instead of "zctl add".
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Now for a bit more explanation about what classes and instances are:
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every Zephyr message is send to a class, an instance, and a recipient,
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commonly written as <class,instance,recipient>. The default class is
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"MESSAGE"; the default instance is "PERSONAL". When you use "zwrite
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username", you are sending a message to <MESSAGE,PERSONAL,username>.
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If you don't specify a username on the zwrite command line, you will
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be sending to the recipient "*", so when you use "zwrite -c newclass",
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you are sending a message to <newclass,PERSONAL,*>.
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Similarly, every time you request a subscription, you are subscribing
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to a class, an instance, and a recipient. The recipient must be
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either "*" or your username. The instance can be any string; however,
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if you subscribe to instance "*", you will receive messages to any
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instance as long as the class and recipient also match. The class can
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be any string; "*" has no special meaning for class names. When you
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start zwgc, you are automatically subscribed to
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<MESSAGE,PERSONAL,yourusername> and <MESSAGE,URGENT,yourusername> even
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if you don't explicitly request those subscriptions.
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As an example of how you might use these features, at MIT we have
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several frequently-used instances of class MESSAGE, called
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"white-magic", "help", "weather", "tmbg" and so forth. These are
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commonly known as "public" instances because they are not intended to
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exclude anyone. Users can subscribe to individual instances using
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"zctl add message help \*", or they can subscribe to all of them at
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once using "zctl add message \* \*". (If users do this, they can tell
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zwgc to filter out messages from certain instances; see the man page
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for zwgc.) If users want to have semi-private group conversations,
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they use separate classes, as described earlier.
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