Customizing motd

You can have the MOTD (message of the day) display messages that may be unique to the machine. One way to do this is to create a script that runs when a user logs on to the system.

First, create a script, make it executable, and save it in /etc/profile.d. Here is an example script named mot.d:

#!/bin/bash
#
echo -e "
##################################
#
# Welcome to `hostname`
# This system is running `cat /etc/redhat-release`
# kernel is `uname -r`
#
# You are logged in as `whoami`
#
##################################
"

Next, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config as follows:

PrintMotd no

This will disable motd. Now restart the sshd service.

That’s it! When you log in, you’d see something similar to:

##################################
#
# Welcome to machine1
# This system is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago)
# kernel is 2.6.32-358.2.1.el6.x86_64
#
# You are logged in as user2
#
##################################

[ Please note that this does not work if your login shell is (t)csh. ]

Customizing ssh banner message

You can also create customized greetings for users connecting to your system through ssh. Note that this message is displayed before the actual login.

Create a text file that should appear as the greetings, for example, /etc/sshgreetings.txt.

$ cat /etc/sshgreetings.txt
###############################
#                             #
#      Welcome to Machine1    #
#                             #
###############################

Then edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config as follows:

Banner /etc/sshgreetings.txt