MOTD.TAIL

Section: Debian Administrator's Manual (5)
Updated: 2007-04-28

NAME

motd.tail - Template for building the system message of the day

DESCRIPTION

On Debian systems, the system message of the day is rebuilt at each startup, in order to display an accurate information. /etc/motd.tail is the file to edit permanent changes to the message of the day.

OVERVIEW

The initiation script /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh prepends a line containing information about the system to /etc/motd.tail and stores the resulting file in /var/run/motd. /etc/motd is a symbolic link to /var/run/motd. This is done to prevent changes to /etc as the system can not assume /etc to be writable.

Changes to /etc/motd effectively end up in a file under /var/run which will be regenerated upon reboot.

A symbolic link to a different file, such as /etc/motd.static disables this behaviour.

FILES

/etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh: The initiation script which builds /var/run/motd
/etc/motd: Symbolic link to the system message of the day at /var/run/motd
/etc/motd.tail: Template for building the system message of the day
/var/run/motd: System message of the day file rebuilt at each computer start