How to change the message of the day (motd) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Issue

  • How to change the message of the day (motd) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Resolution

The message of the day can be used to communicate information to end users, the contents of /etc/motd are displayed after a successful login but just before it executes the login shell.

  • You can change the current message by editing the file /etc/motd using a text editor such as vi or vim
# vi /etc/motd

This is a test message and it will be shown every time a user logs on.
  • After every new login to the system the message will be spawned. Here is a example below:
Last login: Wed Sep 26 13:47:27 2012
This is a test message and it will be shown every time a user logs on.

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3 Comments

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DF Newbie 7 points
2 November 2016 3:59 PM

Most if not all systems within the last few decades (snark) use graphical login of some kind (xdm, gdm, kde). Text based MOTD behavior does not really seem to work in these cases. Something more helpful would be to explain GDM/MOTD Splash Window Behavior. I have seen it on many systems, just can't figure out how to make it so. These RH articles on MOTD should be more helpful and explain this ... still looking.

hg Newbie 5 points
15 November 2017 3:43 PM

How can i set a dynamic message in motd for example: The result of the command uname -r

LR Active Contributor 118 points
1 May 2018 11:49 PM

Same question as haglo above. This "article" has little value. Please add examples.