This is a little guide to display dynamic login messages on a Debian system.

This is one of those things where the internet has plenty of resources, but they are mostly outdated and contradictory. Even typing man motd in Debian is a sad experience.

It is not a difficult thing to do but it can be a big waste of time to sort out the contradictions.

Hopefully, this post will help get the big picture from one single place.

Short history

Ancient times

Time ago, most distributions just printed the contents of /etc/motd upon login.

MOTD stands for message of the day (although it was static), and was put in place at installation time, only to be changed at upgrade time maybe.

$ cat /etc/motd The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software; the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright. Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

Some distributions such as Arch keep operating this way.

Ubuntu came along

Then, Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (2008) introduced a package update-motd, which consisted of

a script called update-motd.

an entry in /etc/cron.d calling update-motd every 10 minutes.

a folder /etc/update-motd.d

The script runs all the scripts in /etc/update-motd.d using run-parts, then stores all output in /var/run/motd.

#!/bin/sh # # update-motd - update the dynamic MOTD immediately # # Copyright (C) 2008-2014 Dustin Kirkland <dustin.kirkland@gmail.com> # # Authors: Dustin Kirkland <dustin.kirkland@gmail.com> # [ comments edited out by ownyourbits ] set -e if ! touch /var/run/motd.new 2>/dev/null; then echo "ERROR: Permission denied, try:" 1>&2 echo " sudo $0" 1>&2 exit 1 fi if run-parts --lsbsysinit /etc/update-motd.d > /var/run/motd.new; then if mv -f /var/run/motd.new /var/run/motd; then cat /var/run/motd exit 0 else echo "ERROR: could not install new MOTD" 1>&2 exit 1 fi fi echo "ERROR: could not generate new MOTD" 1>&2 exit 2

/etc/motd was then made into a symbolic link to /var/run/motd

And pam_motd copied it

Then, PAM thought that that was actually a cool idea and copied it from Ubuntu. In modern Linux, PAM is in charge of login authentication.

SSH uses the pam_motd module

session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic

Ok, now we have yet another file, /run/motd.dynamic.

We can see that they almost literally copied the code.

if (do_update && (stat("/etc/update-motd.d", &st) == 0) && S_ISDIR(st.st_mode)) { mode_t old_mask = umask(0022); if (!system("/usr/bin/env -i PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin ru n-parts --lsbsysinit /etc/update-motd.d > /var/run/motd.new")) rename("/var/run/motd.new", "/var/run/motd"); umask(old_mask); }

For this reason, even in Debian if we create the folder /etc/update-motd.d, which does not exist by default, it will be run at every login in the same way as if we had Ubuntu’s update-motd package installed.

Confusing huh? Well it gets worse because over time, Debian and Ubuntu have changed things, like the scripts populated in /etc/update-motd.d and the use of special files.

Files involved

/etc/motd – The classic, static file. Does not exist anymore in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, not even as a symbolic link to /var/run/motd. If it is created, however its contents will be printed too.

/var/run/motd – This was used by Ubuntu’s first implementation. It is not used anymore. It is just ignored by PAM.

/var/run/motd.dynamic – This is what is shown on login currently . It is updated by /etc/init.d/motd at every boot. It is also updated by PAM by running the scripts in /etc/update-motd.d/, if they exist.

. It is updated by /etc/init.d/motd at every boot. It is also updated by PAM by running the scripts in /etc/update-motd.d/, if they exist. /etc/motd.tail – The Ubuntu package used to populate /etc/update-motd.d. One of them would cat the contents of this file so it was easy to add static content. That script does not exist in the package anymore, so the file does not have the intended effect.

How to then?

Okay, so once we understand why Google confuses us, it is pretty easy to customize our MOTD.

First, make sure to disable /etc/init.d/motd, as it writes to /var/run/motd.dynamic.

... # Update motd uname -snrvm > /var/run/motd.dynamic ...

In my Raspbian Jessie, for instance it already came disabled. Just in case

sudo systemctl disable motd

Then, just delete current static MOTD, create /etc/update-motd.d folder and place scripts in it.

mkdir /etc/update-motd.d rm -f /etc/motd # in Debian still exists

Scripts are run by run-parts, so they need not have an extension. They must start with digits so they will be run in order.

Finally, you can opt to get rid of the “last login” message if you want

PrintLastLog no

This is a simple example

cat > /etc/update-motd.d/10logo <<EOF #!/bin/sh echo cat /etc/issue EOF cat > /etc/update-motd.d/20updates <<'EOF' #!/bin/sh echo echo "uptime is $( uptime )" echo "date is $( date )" EOF chmod a+x /etc/update-motd.d/*

Next login we will get

Debian GNU/Linux 9 uptime is 15:40:52 up 2 days, 4 min, 1 user, load average: 1.54, 1.48, 1.04 date is Wed Apr 5 15:40:52 UTC 2017

Some ideas

FIGlet

You can use good old FIGlet. It will take your input and create some text based ASCII art.

$ figlet ownyourbits _ _ _ _____ ___ __ _ _ ___ _ _ _ __| |__ (_) |_ ___ / _ \ \ /\ / / '_ \| | | |/ _ \| | | | '__| '_ \| | __/ __| | (_) \ V V /| | | | |_| | (_) | |_| | | | |_) | | |_\__ \ \___/ \_/\_/ |_| |_|\__, |\___/ \__,_|_| |_.__/|_|\__|___/ |___/

You can even get “fonts” for it here

$ figlet -ct -f roman ownyourbits .o8 o8o . "888 `"' .o8 .ooooo. oooo oooo ooo ooo. .oo. oooo ooo .ooooo. oooo oooo oooo d8b 888oooo. oooo .o888oo .oooo.o d88' `88b `88. `88. .8' `888P"Y88b `88. .8' d88' `88b `888 `888 `888""8P d88' `88b `888 888 d88( "8 888 888 `88..]88..8' 888 888 `88..8' 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 `"Y88b. 888 888 `888'`888' 888 888 `888' 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 . o. )88b `Y8bod8P' `8' `8' o888o o888o .8' `Y8bod8P' `V88V"V8P' d888b `Y8bod8P' o888o "888" 8""888P' .o..P' `Y8P'

System info

You can play with lm-sensors to get information such as fan speed or temperature.

Also, you can print any of the typical system info provided by standard tools.

#!/bin/sh upSeconds="$(/usr/bin/cut -d. -f1 /proc/uptime)" secs=$((${upSeconds}%60)) mins=$((${upSeconds}/60%60)) hours=$((${upSeconds}/3600%24)) days=$((${upSeconds}/86400)) UPTIME=`printf "%d days, %02dh%02dm%02ds" "$days" "$hours" "$mins" "$secs"` # get the load averages read one five fifteen rest < /proc/loadavg echo "$(tput setaf 2) .~~. .~~. `date +"%A, %e %B %Y, %r"` '. \ ' ' / .' `uname -srmo`$(tput setaf 1) .~ .~~~..~. : .~.'~'.~. : Uptime.............: ${UPTIME} ~ ( ) ( ) ~ Memory.............: `cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemFree | awk {'print $2'}`kB (Free) / `cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemTotal | awk {'print $2'}`kB (Total) ( : '~'.~.'~' : ) Load Averages......: ${one}, ${five}, ${fifteen} (1, 5, 15 min) ~ .~ ( ) ~. ~ Running Processes..: `ps ax | wc -l | tr -d " "` ( : '~' : ) IP Addresses.......: `ip a | grep glo | awk '{print $2}' | head -1 | cut -f1 -d/` and `wget -q -O - http://icanhazip.com/ | tail` '~ .~~~. ~' Weather............: `curl -s "http://rss.accuweather.com/rss/liveweather_rss.asp?metric=1&locCode=EUR|UK|UK001|NAILSEA|" | sed -n '/Currently:/ s/.*: \(.*\): \([0-9]*\)\([CF]\).*/\2°\3, \1/p'` '~' $(tput sgr0)"

adapted from here.

Here is one example output

Termpix

You can get even fancier using tools like termpix. This tool creates ASCII art from pictures, and shows better if we have half block capable fonts available.

This is what I used for the MOTD in NextCloudPi.

landscape-sysinfo

This one is Ubuntu only.

sudo apt-get install landscape-common

$ landscape-sysinfo System load: 1.39 Processes: 3 Usage of /: 3.1% of 9.99GB Users logged in: 0 Memory usage: 34% IP address for eth0: 172.17.0.3 Swap usage: 0% Graph this data and manage this system at: https://landscape.canonical.com/

Banner

sudo apt-get install sysvbanner

$ banner myownbits # # # # #### # # # # ##### # ##### #### ## ## # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # ##### # # #### # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## ## # ## # # # # # # # # # #### # # # # ##### # # ####

Boxes

sudo apt-get install boxes

Another classic

$ boxes -a c -d scroll <<< "gimme my bits" / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ | /~~\ /~~\ | |\ \ | | / /| | \ /| gimme my bits |\ / | | ~~ | | ~~ | | | | | \ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| / \ / \ / ~~~ ~~~

$ boxes -a c -d spring <<< "own your flowers" , /\^/`\ | \/ | | | | jgs \ \ / _ _ '\\//' _{ ' }_ || own your flowers { `.!.` } || ',_/Y\_,' || , {_,_} |\ || |\ | | | || | | (\| /) | | || / / \| // \ \||/ / |// `\\//` \ \./ \\ \./ \ \\ |/ / ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

$ boxes -a c -d unicornthink <<< "there is no cloud" _________________________________ / \ | there is no cloud | \______________________________ '\ () \\ O \\ . o |\\/| / " '\ . . . / ) | ' _.' | '-'/ \

$ boxes -a c -d mouse <<< "today is $(date)" .--, .--, ( ( \.---./ ) ) '.__/o o\__.' {= ^ =} > - < ____________.""`-------`"".____________ / \ \ today is Thu Apr 6 15:51:48 UTC 2017 / / \ \_______________________________________/ ___)( )(___ (((__) (__)))

List all different designs with

boxes -l

lolcat

You can spice up your creations with trippy rainbow colors with lolcat

Play with it

No need to risk your system. Test your ideas in a Docker container.

You can use ownyourbits minidebian container.

docker run --rm -ti ownyourbits/minidebian

, and the official Ubuntu container.

docker run --rm -ti ubuntu /bin/bash

References

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UpdateMotd

https://wiki.debian.org/motd