/etc/motd
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:~#
/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:~#
/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
- 2024
- Reinstalling Windows at 1am
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- How to Disable Wayland in Debian Testing
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- The Software Essays that Shaped Me from Refactoring English
- Give Your Spouse the Gift of a Couple's Email Domain from mtlynch.io
- Skip the Next iPhone from Articles on Jose M.
- Have smart glasses finally hit an inflection point? from The Torment Nexus
- The McPhee method from the jsomers.net blog
- Pluralistic: LLMs are slot-machines (16 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Pluralistic: Bluesky creates the world's weirdest, hardest-to-understand binding arbitration clause (15 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Just a Little More Context Bro, I Promise, and It’ll Fix Everything from Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Pluralistic: Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach' (21 Oct 2025)
Today's links Carl Hiaasen's 'Fever Beach': If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Scary Godmother; Nightvale novel; The war on Worker's Comp; Cadillac's murdermo…
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow October 21, 202510 pointless facts about me
Found on Kev’s blog and originally started by Dave, here are my answers to this fun blog challenge: Do you floss your teeth? Sometimes. I’d say maybe a few times a week? I’m terrible at being consistent, and that includes flossing regularly. Tea, co…
via Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed October 21, 2025Getting started with simple CSS View Transitions
There's (yet another) new piece of CSS to learn! Hurrah! Way back in 2011, jQuery mobile introduced the web to page-change animations. Clicking on a link would make your high-tech Nokia display a cool page-flip as you navigated from one page of a web…
via Terence Eden’s Blog October 21, 2025Generated by openring