Mesg y might be annoying blinking on all your consoles. Here's what i have in my ~/.profile: mesg y mecount=$[$(who -T | grep $LOGNAME | grep + | wc -l)] if [ "$mecount" != "1" ]; then mesg n fi or shorter: mesg y [ `who -T |grep "$LOGNAME\ *+" |wc -l` -ge 1 ] && mesg n