Zephyr Quick Answers

Zephyr is a system that allows users to communicate online in realtime. Zephyrgrams are messages that appear on your screen as windows containing the text of the message and information about the sender. The person you wish to send a zephyr to must be logged in and running a zephyr client to receive messages. By default a zephyr client (zwgc) is automatically started when you login.

1 Useful Commands

zlocate friend is the command used to find out if user “friend” is logged in and subscribing to zephyr messages. If they are logged in and subscribing to messages you will receive information about where they are logged in. If they are not logged in you will receive the message “Hidden or not logged-in.” This means they either are logged in and do not want to be found or are not logged in. zwrite friend is used to send a message to friend. Just follow the instructions given. If you get an error saying the person is hidden or not logged in then your message has not been sent and the person you are trying to reach is not logged in or is not subscribing to messages. Try sending e-mail instead. zctl hide can be used to “hide” yourself. When hidden you are not zlocatable, but if someone tries to zwrite you anyway they will succeed. zctl wg shutdown should be used if you want to stop receiving zephyr messages for this session. zctl set zwrite-signature “foo” will change your zsig to foo. By default your zsig is your name as it exists in your finger information. It shows up in a zephyr message before your username. You can change it to almost anything you like, although you should avoid very long zsigs since they tend to annoy people. zaway is used to let people know you are away from the terminal and not deliberately ignoring their messages. It sends a message to whoever sends you a personal zephyrgram that lets them know that you are away and will respond later. zwgc -ttymode will startup a zephyr client when you are logged in on dialup. Zephyrs appear as plain text on your screen. znol will let you know which people on a list are logged in. A file you can create called /.anyone should contain the list of usernames you want to know about (it should have one name per line and no spaces). You will also be sent login and logout notices in the form of a zephyrgram whenever one of the users in your list logs in or out (if they are announced) after you run znol during a session. zctl set exposure exposure level will set your exposure (how other people know information about your being logged in). If the exposure level is net-announced, login and logout notices will be sent to people who have you in their .anyone file and you will be zlocatable. net-visible is the same except login and logout notices are not sent. The opstaff setting makes you unzlocatable and no notices are sent. Finally the none setting provides no information about you and you will not be able to recieve zephyrgrams. Note that exposure settings will last until you change them again. zctl sub message foo \* will subscribe you to a zephyr instance named foo. Zephyr instances (and classes) allow groups of people to have conversations via zephyr. This will subscribe you to the instance for your current login only; to make it more permanent replace sub with add. To unsubscribe for this login only change sub to unsub, and to unsubscribe permanently use delete instead. zwrite -i foo will send a message to the zephyr instance foo. zctl sub foo \* \* subscribes you to the zephyr class foo. Zephyr classes are slightly more private than instances as you must know the name of the class to subscribe to it. unsub, add and delete work the same way as for instances. zwrite -c foo sends a zephyr to class foo.

2 More Information

More information about Zephyr is available in OLC stock answers and from the Student Information Processing Board document Inessential Zephyr avaliable in W20-577. Simply type olc then answers to reach the olc stock answers.