motd(5) manual page

Manual Pages — MOTD

NAME

motd – file containing message(s) of the day

DESCRIPTION

The file /var/run/motd is normally displayed by login(1) after a user has logged in but before the shell is run. It is generally used for important system-wide announcements. During system startup, a line containing the kernel version string is prepended to /etc/motd.template and the contents are written to /var/run/motd.

/var/run/motd can be updated without a system reboot by manually restarting the motd service after updating /etc/motd.template:

service motd restart

Individual users may suppress the display of this file by creating a file named " .hushlogin" in their home directories or through login.conf(5).

FILES

`/etc/motd`	Symbolic link to `/var/run/motd`.
`/etc/motd.template`
	The template file that system administrators can edit.
`/var/run/motd`	The message of the day.
`$HOME/.hushlogin`	Suppresses output of `/var/run/motd`.

EXAMPLES

FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun Dec 29 03:08:31 PST 2019

/home is full. Please cleanup your directories.

HISTORY

Prior to FreeBSD 13.0, motd lived in /etc.

MOTD (5)

December 14, 2024

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