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Name

mcchat - multicast chat program

Synopsis

mcchat [-h]
mcchat [-v]
mcchat [-d] [-g group] [-p port] [-t ttl]

Description

Mcchat is a little chat program like talk(1) or irc(1) but which is not that sophisticated; it is merely thought as an example of the use of libmc(3) . Especially the screen handling is very raw. Mcchat users can see all messages that other users distribute on the same group and port. If you specify no options then default settings are used.

Options to mcchat consist of the following:

-d
Outputs some debugging information. This only of limited help and mostly not needed by end users.

-h
Displays a very short help message and then exits.

-g group
With this option you can override the default setting of the multi- cast group where messages are sent and expected. The Default is 225.0.0.1.

-p port
With this option you can override the default setting of the udp port where messages are received and sent to. The Default udp port is 44001.

-t ttl
With this option you can override the default setting of the ttl of multicast packets. This controls how far your messages will be dis- tributed. The default value for the ttl is 8.

-v
Displays the version of mcntp, mcchat is part of and exits.

If you want to use a different ``channel'' then just start mcchat (in a second window) and specify another port than the default one.

To be able to use mcchat your system administrator must already have set up multicast routing and the host, where you want to run mcchat must be capable of multicasting.

See Also

mcntp(8) , mess_send(1) , libmc(3) , netstat(1) , tcpdump(8) , udp(4) , mrouted(8) , mtrace(8) ,

History

The mcchat command is part of the diploma thesis Transport of NetNews via IP-multicast and is provided as another example of how to use the multi- cast library libmc(3) .

Author

Heiko W.Rupp (hwr@pilhuhn.de)

Bugs

There is no nice formatting of the screen like irc(1) or talk(1) does. So incoming messages can disrupt what you type.

The settings for port and group are not officially assigned by the IANA.

Table of Contents

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