Send or Receive a Message from/to a Windows Machine

Sending a Message

MS/Windows can send a message to another MS/Windows PC which will
pop-up and appear in a dialog box. This is used by admins for
notification purposes. The DOS command is:

NET SEND NetBIOS-computer-name "Message to send to user"

Linux can send the same message to a MS/Windows PC using the command:

linux$ smbclient -M NetBIOS-computer-name
Message to send to user
ctrl-d

If smbclient isn’t installed you need to, do for Debian and Ubuntu:

apt-get install smbclient

Small Notes:

• Message limit is 1600 bytes.
• Alternate method: cat mymessage.txt | smbclient -M NetBIOS-computer-name

Receiving a Message

To handle incoming messages on Linux, set the “message command” parameter in the smb.conf.

message command = csh -c 'xedit %s;rm %s' &

This will use the application “xedit” to display the message. The message is then removed.

• %s : The file-name containing the message.
• %t : Message destination (computer or server to which it was sent.)
• %f : Message sender.

Default smb.conf config file is no message command.

Before it works you need to put your needed IP and Netbios name in “/etc/samba/lmhosts” – NETBIOS name resolution

Update: also check if the service is active on you windows machine. You start it by typing it in the cmd:

net start messenger