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
- A.
