MOTD

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (5)
Updated: 1992-12-29
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

motd - message of the day

DESCRIPTION

The contents of /etc/motd are displayed by login(1) after a successful login but just before it executes the login shell.

The abbreviation "motd" stands for "message of the day", and this file has been traditionally used for exactly that (it requires much less disk space than mail to all users).

On Debian GNU/Linux this file is a symbolic link pointing to /var/run. The contents of this file are regenerated upon every system boot based on the contents of /etc/motd.tail.

FILES

/etc/motd
/etc/motd.tail

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.27 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.