Sending a message to all users on a filer

Purpose of sending a message

You send a message to all users on a filer to tell them of important events. The message appears in an alert box on the users' computers.

Data ONTAP automatically sends a message to connected users after you enter the cifs terminate command. However, if you want to send a message without stopping CIFS service, for example, to tell users to close all files, use Server Manager or the Data ONTAP command line to send a message.

Prerequisite for displaying the message

Windows 95 and Windows for Workgroups clients must have the WinPopup program configured before they can display any messages you send from the filer.

Sending a message to all connected users from Server Manager

To use Server Manager to send a message to all users on a filer, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Select your filer from Server Manager.
2	From the Computer menu, choose Send Message as you would when sending a message to users on a Windows NT server. Example The following example illustrates how to send a message to all users on toaster.

Step

Action

Select your filer from Server Manager.

From the Computer menu, choose Send Message as you would when sending a message to users on a Windows NT server.

Example

The following example illustrates how to send a message to all users on toaster.

Sending messages to connected users from the command line

To use the Data ONTAP command line to send a message to one client or to all clients connected to a particular volume, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	If you want to...	Then...
	Send a message to all CIFS users connected to the filer	Go to Step 2.
	Send a message to all CIFS users connected to a particular volume	Go to Step 3.
2	Enter the following command: *cifs broadcast client_name* "message"**
3	Enter the following command *cifs broadcast -v volume* "message"**