/etc/motd

| linux | ubuntu |

I have been using Linux for many years, but only recently found out about /etc/motd. When you SSH into a server, it displays a message that varies depending on your Linux distribution. For instance, a stock Debian installation looks like this:

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.
Last login: Wed Sep 14 23:38:34 2016
user@hostname:~#

I never thought to look at where this message comes from, but apparently it lives in /etc/motd. I believe this stands for "message of the day". This means that you can have this message say anything that you would like by editing the contents of /etc/motd. For example, you can use this Text to ASCII generator to put the hostname of your server in stunning ASCII text and make it look like this:
Levs-MacBook-Pro:~ levlaz$  ssh dev.levops.net
     _            _                                        _
  __| | _____   _| | _____   _____  _ __  ___   _ __   ___| |_
 / _` |/ _ \ \ / / |/ _ \ \ / / _ \| '_ \/ __| | '_ \ / _ \ __|
| (_| |  __/\ V /| |  __/\ V / (_) | |_) \__ \_| | | |  __/ |_
 \__,_|\___| \_(_)_|\___| \_/ \___/| .__/|___(_)_| |_|\___|\__|
                                   |_|

dev:~#

This is pretty neat! You can also do some fancy things like Ubuntu does and make this message change depending on various events such as security updates being available or a server restart being required. You can explore the scripts that Ubuntu uses in the /etc/update-motd.d/directory on a standard install.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Now we have a timeline of the OpenAI accidental attack against Hugging Face

OpenAI gave a last-minute presentation at the Black Hat security on Wednesday about "the Hugging Face Incident" (previously on this blog). The video was published yesterday. It's short and information dense and well worth watching, in particular because it...

via Simon Willison's Weblog: Entries August 7, 2026

Spoiler: Wil Wheaton is a Wizard

I am holding pink pages in my hand, reviewing them before I collate them into my script. A magic battle ensues between Wil and Bert (fireballs, energy bolts, conjured beasts, etc.) I look at the script again, to make sure I haven’t misread it. Yeah, it rea...

via WIL WHEATON dot NET August 7, 2026

Seeing like a state

The post about the dark mode toggle reminded me of two similar things rattling in my brain. On the positive side, here’s a delightful interaction from macOS. I can easily maximize the window to take up half the screen, but the moment I start dragging it, i...

via Unsung August 7, 2026

Generated by openring