If you read any of our previous articles in the Debian Dynamic MOTD Series, then you may be wondering how this can be accomplished on your fresh new Debian Trixie setup. This is what is presented to the user in terminal when a log on occurs.
This feature is very nice as it will give you a quick look at useful information. Unfortunately, Debian Server does not include the dynamic MOTD. First you will need to install some prerequisites and build the directory structure. To do so, run the following commands in terminal. As of writing, update notifications are no longer supported using Update Notifier Common as was previously the case as using Debian MOTD Update Notifier.
# install lsb-release and figlet sudo apt install lsb-release figlet # change to motd directory cd /etc/update-motd.d/ # create dynamic files sudo touch 00-header 10-sysinfo 90-footer # make files executable sudo chmod +x /etc/update-motd.d/* # remove old motd files sudo rm /etc/motd /etc/update-motd.d/10-uname
Once the above commands have been run, you can move on to populating the files you created. Below you can copy and paste.
Header (00-header)
#!/bin/sh
#
# 00-header - create the header of the MOTD
# Copyright (c) 2013 Nick Charlton
# Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Canonical Ltd.
#
[ -r /etc/lsb-release ] ; /etc/lsb-release
if [ -z "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" ] ; [ -x /usr/bin/lsb_release ]; then
# Fall back to using the very slow lsb_release utility
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(lsb_release -s -d)
fi
figlet $(hostname)
printf "\n"
printf "Welcome to %s (%s).\n" "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" "$(uname -r)"
printf "\n"
System Information (10-sysinfo)
#!/bin/bash
#
# 10-sysinfo - generate the system information
# Copyright (c) 2013 Nick Charlton
#
date=`date`
load=`cat /proc/loadavg | awk '{print $1}'`
root_usage=`df -h / | awk '/\// {print $(NF-1)}'`
memory_usage=`free -m | awk '/Mem:/ { total=$2; used=$3 } END { printf("%3.1f%%", used/total*100)}'`
swap_usage=`free -m | awk '/Swap/ { printf("%3.1f%%", $3/$2*100) }'`
users=`users | wc -w`
time=`uptime | grep -ohe 'up .*' | sed 's/,/\ hours/g' | awk '{ printf $2" "$3 }'`
processes=`ps aux | wc -l`
ip=`hostname -I | awk '{print $1}'`
echo "System information as of: $date"
echo
printf "System Load:\t%s\tIP Address:\t%s\n" $load $ip
printf "Memory Usage:\t%s\tSystem Uptime:\t%s\n" $memory_usage "$time"
printf "Usage On /:\t%s\tSwap Usage:\t%s\n" $root_usage $swap_usage
printf "Local Users:\t%s\tProcesses:\t%s\n" $users $processes
echo
Footer (90-footer)
#!/bin/sh # # 99-footer - write the admin's footer to the MOTD # Copyright (c) 2013 Nick Charlton # Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Canonical Ltd. # [ -f /etc/motd.tail ] ; cat /etc/motd.tail || true
Once these files are populated with the above, you should now be able to logout and then log back in either using putty or on the console and you will be presented with something that looks like below.
