xref: /freebsd/share/man/man5/motd.5 (revision 06c3fb2749bda94cb5201f81ffdb8fa6c3161b2e)
1.\"	$NetBSD: motd.5,v 1.2 1994/12/28 18:58:53 glass Exp $
2.\"
3.\" This file is in the public domain.
4.\"
5.Dd October 18, 2020
6.Dt MOTD 5
7.Os
8.Sh NAME
9.Nm motd
10.Nd file containing message(s) of the day
11.Sh DESCRIPTION
12The file
13.Pa /var/run/motd
14is normally displayed by
15.Xr login 1
16after a user has logged in but before the shell is run.
17It is generally used for important system-wide announcements.
18During system startup, a line containing the kernel version string is
19prepended to
20.Pa /etc/motd.template
21and the contents are written to
22.Pa /var/run/motd .
23.Pp
24.Pa /var/run/motd
25can be updated without a system reboot by manually restarting the
26motd service after updating
27.Pa /etc/motd.template :
28.Bd -literal -offset -ident -compact
29service motd restart
30.Ed
31.Pp
32Individual users may suppress the display of this file by
33creating a file named
34.Dq Pa .hushlogin
35in their home directories or through
36.Xr login.conf 5 .
37.Sh FILES
38.Bl -tag -width $HOME/.hushlogin -compact
39.It Pa /etc/motd.template
40The template file that system administrators can edit.
41.It Pa /var/run/motd
42The message of the day.
43.It Pa $HOME/.hushlogin
44Suppresses output of
45.Pa /var/run/motd .
46.El
47.Sh EXAMPLES
48.Bd -literal
49FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun Dec 29 03:08:31 PST 2019
50
51/home is full.  Please cleanup your directories.
52.Ed
53.Sh SEE ALSO
54.Xr login 1 ,
55.Xr login.conf 5
56.Sh HISTORY
57Prior to
58.Fx 13.0 ,
59.Nm
60lived in
61.Pa /etc .
62