xref: /freebsd/share/man/man5/motd.5 (revision de3deff65c5b407ab29b45780f2585b3bc24bbd6)
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 December 14, 2024
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.Pp
29.Dl service motd restart
30.Pp
31Individual users may suppress the display of this file by
32creating a file named
33.Dq Pa .hushlogin
34in their home directories or through
35.Xr login.conf 5 .
36.Sh FILES
37.Bl -tag -width "/etc/motd.template" -compact
38.It Pa /etc/motd
39Symbolic link to
40.Pa /var/run/motd .
41.It Pa /etc/motd.template
42The template file that system administrators can edit.
43.It Pa /var/run/motd
44The message of the day.
45.It Pa $HOME/.hushlogin
46Suppresses output of
47.Pa /var/run/motd .
48.El
49.Sh EXAMPLES
50.Bd -literal
51FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun Dec 29 03:08:31 PST 2019
52
53/home is full.  Please cleanup your directories.
54.Ed
55.Sh SEE ALSO
56.Xr login 1 ,
57.Xr login.conf 5
58.Sh HISTORY
59Prior to
60.Fx 13.0 ,
61.Nm
62lived in
63.Pa /etc .
64