@node talkd
@chapter talkd
@cindex talkd

@command{Talkd} is the server that notifies a user that someone else wants to
initiate a conversation.  It acts as a repository of invitations, responding
to requests by clients wishing to rendezvous to hold a conversation.  In
normal operation, a client, the caller, initiates a rendezvous by sending
a CTL_MSG to the server of type LOOK_UP (see <protocols/talkd.h>). This
causes the server to search its invitation tables to check if an invitation
currently exists for the caller (to speak to the callee specified in
the message).  If the lookup fails, the caller then sends an ANNOUNCE
message causing the server to broadcast an announcement on the callee's
login ports requesting contact.  When the callee responds, the local
server uses the recorded invitation to respond with the appropriate
rendezvous address and the caller and callee client programs establish a
stream connection through which the conversation takes place.


@section Invoking

The options are as follows:

@table @samp

@item -a @var{FILE}
@itemx --acl=@var{FILE}
@opindex -a
@opindex --acl
Read site-wide ACLs from FILE.

@item -d
@item --debug
@opindex --debug
@opindex --d
Enable debugging.

@item -i @var{SECONDS}
@itemx --idle-timeout=@var{SECONDS}
@opindex -i
@opindex --idle-timeout
Set idle timeout value.

@item -r @var{SECONDS}
@itemx --request-ttl=@var{SECONDS}
@opindex -r
@opindex --request-ttl
Set request time-to-live value.


@item -t @var{SECONDS}
@item --timeout=@var{SECONDS}
@opindex -t
@opindex --timeout
Set timeout value.

@end table
