Change the Message of the Day
Put a decent MOTD message on the system (FreeBSD 5.4)
Posted 23.06.2006 | Updated 23.06.2006 | Contributed by Andy Mallett


Ah, the good old motd, that splendid wall of text which pops up whenever you log onto the system.

Don't ask me what it says, I've seen it millions of times but never actually read what it says.

So much for putting up important notices for users to read.

Although perhaps therein lies the problem: if users see the same thing often enough they'll just ignore it.

Particularly if this is one huge block of uninteresting text.. 


FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun May  8 10:21:06 UTC 2005

Welcome to FreeBSD!

Before seeking technical support, please use the following resources:

o  Security advisories and updated errata information for all releases are
   at http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/ - always consult the ERRATA section
   for your release first as it's updated frequently.

o  The Handbook and FAQ documents are at http://www.FreeBSD.org/ and,
   along with the mailing lists, can be searched by going to
   http://www.FreeBSD.org/search/.  If the doc distribution has
   been installed, they're also available formatted in /usr/share/doc.

If you still have a question or problem, please take the output of
`uname -a', along with any relevant error messages, and email it
as a question to the questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list.  If you are
unfamiliar with FreeBSD's directory layout, please refer to the hier(7)
manual page.  If you are not familiar with manual pages, type `man man'.

You may also use sysinstall(8) to re-enter the installation and
configuration utility.  Edit /etc/motd to change this login announcement.
To redress this situation, edit the motd file..

vi  /etc/motd

OK so it's time to get cool. So maybe try something like this.. 

 ____  _____ _____  _ __________________________________________
| __ )| ____|_   _|/ \
|  _ \|  _|   | | / _ \
| |_) | |___  | |/ ___ \
|____/|_____| |_/_/   \_\
DHCP SERVER"
________________________________________________________________


Yeah? Yeah!? Now that's what I'm talkin' about..

Next update rc.conf so that the changes don't get overwritten next time the system boots.

vi  /etc/motd

Add the following line..

update_motd="NO"

To really get in your users' faces, copy this (or another) banner over to the /etc/issue file. This will make the warning banner visible at the console before the login prompt..

cp  /etc/motd  /etc/issue