osdchat

Introduction

osdchat is a simple messaging utility that allows you to remotely send messages directly to the screen as an on-screen display (OSD). This may be used a lightweight messaging service in a local area network to message busy admins or communicate with friends who like to watch fullscreen movies or otherwise cannot see what's going on in the background. There is a wide assortment of options to customize the look, feel, and location of the incoming messages. I suppose it also shares some similarity with the ancient UNIX utility write, except that tty has been replaced with X. osdchat has been tested only under Linux, specifically Gentoo 1.4 and Slackware 9.0/1, but should work on any full distribution meeting the dependencies.

Screenshots

News

Details are in the Changelog

17 Jan 2004 - osdchat-0.1.8 released. This release concentrates on resolving security related issues, some non-blocking i/o improvements, and a buffer overflow fix.

15 Dec 2003 - osdchat-0.1.7 released. This release contains minor feature enhancements such as use of a block list to ban abusive clients that exceed the warning level and the ability to log messages to a file. Some issues with TCP/IP have been resolved.

24 Nov 2003 - osdchat-0.1.6 released. This release focuses on fixing bugs, and tying up some loose ends before focusing on getting two way communication implemented. IMHO, this is a usable stable product, then again only one person ever e-mailed me, so my opinion is obviously short-sighted.

17 Nov 2003 - osdchat-0.1.5 released. Minor changes include use of timestamps, warning levels for abusive clients, and proper client notification of server shutdown. Client can read input from a pipe and fifo file. Also use of global/user config file is now possible - so as to eliminate long command line options.

16 Oct 2003 - osdchat-0.1.4 released. Minor changes include use of the readline library for the console client, a man page, and a new command switch to format the prompt of incoming messages.

14 Oct 2003 - Finally put up this web page for my project, just in time for the upcoming release of 0.1.4.

26 Sep 2003 - osdchat-0.1.3 released. This release contains important bug fixes that eliminate a buffer overflow and a memory leak.

Download

Tarball osdchat-0.1.8.tar.gz (mirror) (checksum)
Gentoo Ebuild osdchat-0.1.8.ebuild
View individual source files here
Man Page osdchatd.1

Install

Edit the Makefile as needed to change the install paths.

tar zxvf osdchat-[version].tar.gz
cd osdchat-[version]

make check (md5sum check to make sure files are intact)
make
make install (need to be root, or have proper capabilities)

Copy sample osdchatd.conf configuration file to /etc or
rename to .osdchatd and place it in your home directory.
Change settings as desired.

The sample config file is equivalent to the built-in
defaults, so a config file is not needed to just test
the package.

Dependencies

XOSD
Readline

Contact

Mike Smelov mike (at) argoncorp (dot) com
Please e-mail me comments, suggestions, bug reports, or complaints.