HP and MOTD

[Tony500]

Does HPUX have a MOTD (Message of the day) If so where is it located?

[keith persons]

Yes it does, should be in /etc

[Patrick Wallek]

/etc/motd

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

I hit submit too darn quick!

If /etc/motd isn't there just create it and make sure that it has world-readable permissions.

[Tony500]

But if its not in /etc, where would it be? A better question might be, what should I be looking for in /etc? I don't see anything like MOTD
Thanks

[Tony500]

I gave Keith Persons 6 pts. I don't know why it only came up with 2?!

[Patrick Wallek]

Here's an excerpt from the HP-UX System Administration Tasks manual available at:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90672/B2355-90672.html
(This excerpt is from the "Setting up a System -> Making adjustments to your system" section)

****************
Posting a Message of the Day

If you want to display messages after each successful login, place your messages in the file /etc/motd. These messages will appear if the system-wide customization file (either /etc/profile or /etc/csh.login) contains the following line:

cat /etc/motd # message of the day

By default, /etc/profile or /etc/csh.login displays the message in /etc/motd at the user login.

Use /etc/motd to display timely messages. For example:

Welcome to the System SYSTEMUX [HP-UX Release B.10.0 9000/870]

For any questions or concerns, contact the System Administrator.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

You probably don't have an /etc/motd. Simply create a text file /etc/motd using vi, give it 444 permissions, and you are done. You can also modify /etc/uissue but that is typically used for login banners.

[Kim Kendall]

Just create the file /etc/motd .... or .... create it somewhere on the network that all of your systems have mounted (nfs) and just make a link to it. Then all of your systems will see it and you only have one place to manage it.

Also http://www.azsage.org/present/051199/

Is a paper I wrote on how I used it in an environment with almost 1000 HP-UX desktop systems. With a few minor tweaks, it can be implemented in other (Sun, SGI, etc.) environments.

[Chris Wilshaw]

motd doesn't have to be in /etc, but that's the default location for consistency across platforms.

/etc/profile has the following;

# Message of the day

if [ -r /etc/motd ]
then
cat /etc/motd
fi


you can change the file location to anything you like

eg /home/motd
or /usr/local/motd

If you change the location of the file, you also need to change this in /etc/csh.login

[Tony500]

Kim, thanks for the link to your paper. I found it extremely useful!