Subj : Re: Pine, TIN etc.
To   : Gamgee
From : tenser
Date : Mon May 20 2024 01:14 am

On 17 May 2024 at 06:26p, Gamgee pondered and said...
 
 Ga> -=> tenser wrote to Avon <=-
 Ga> 
 Ga>  te> On 17 May 2024 at 02:46p, Avon pondered and said...
 Ga> 
 Ga>  Av> I'm starting to wonder if we can (in some way) bring it back?
 Ga> 
 Ga>  te> It's still there!  One can install it on most Unix-y systems,
 Ga>  te> Linux distributions, etc.
 Ga> 
 Ga> It's installed by default on my Slackware Linux systems.  Haven't used
 Ga> it,  and don't know how to, but it is present and functional.

So there are two components:

* The talk server, which is actually just kind of a little,
  in-memory database of talk _requests_, and
* The talk client, of which `ytalk` is one but so are `talk`
  and `ntalk`.

The way the protocol works, in a nutshell, is that you send
a talk "request" to a distant host by running the client.
E.g.,

    ytalk tenser@fat-dragon.org

This does a couple of things: 1, sends a message to the `talkd`
server _on your local machine_ saying that you want to talk to
the remote user.  If there's no existing request _from_ the remote
user, it creates a listening socket and posts it's address locally
_and_ sends a request to the `talkd` on the remote machine saying
you want to talk.  The `talkd` on the remote machine then writes
a message to the remote user (provided the user is logged in and
has configured their terminal to answer talk requests).  If they
chose to answer you, they then run talk locally in a similar manner
to how you did:

    ytalk you@your.host.com

Their local talk client talks to their local talk server, which
has a record of your chat request and the socket your request is
listening on.  Your talk client then makes a TCP connection to
that socket; at which point, both clients send a message to their
local talk servers that acknowledges that the connection has been
established, and they're done.  You then proceed to talk to the
other user via the TCP connection; the UI is usually a split
screen affair.

So in order for it to work, you have to have both the client
installed, _and_ the talk server installed and configured to
accept requests from the larger Internet.  Most folks don't have
the latter part set up (for good reasons; the protocol is totally
insecure, and doesn't play well with firewalls and NAT'ing, etc).

The "standard" talk daemon from Berkeley was run from `inetd`.

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