xref: /freebsd/share/man/man5/motd.5 (revision e87ec409fa9b21abf79895837fe375ab3d7e408a)
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.\" $FreeBSD$
5.\"
6.Dd October 18, 2020
7.Dt MOTD 5
8.Os
9.Sh NAME
10.Nm motd
11.Nd file containing message(s) of the day
12.Sh DESCRIPTION
13The file
14.Pa /var/run/motd
15is normally displayed by
16.Xr login 1
17after a user has logged in but before the shell is run.
18It is generally used for important system-wide announcements.
19During system startup, a line containing the kernel version string is
20prepended to
21.Pa /etc/motd.template
22and the contents are written to
23.Pa /var/run/motd .
24.Pp
25.Pa /var/run/motd
26can be updated without a system reboot by manually restarting the
27motd service after updating
28.Pa /etc/motd.template :
29.Bd -literal -offset -ident -compact
30service motd restart
31.Ed
32.Pp
33Individual users may suppress the display of this file by
34creating a file named
35.Dq Pa .hushlogin
36in their home directories or through
37.Xr login.conf 5 .
38.Sh FILES
39.Bl -tag -width $HOME/.hushlogin -compact
40.It Pa /etc/motd.template
41The template file that system administrators can edit.
42.It Pa /var/run/motd
43The message of the day.
44.It Pa $HOME/.hushlogin
45Suppresses output of
46.Pa /var/run/motd .
47.El
48.Sh EXAMPLES
49.Bd -literal
50FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Sun Dec 29 03:08:31 PST 2019
51
52/home is full.  Please cleanup your directories.
53.Ed
54.Sh SEE ALSO
55.Xr login 1 ,
56.Xr login.conf 5
57.Sh HISTORY
58Prior to
59.Fx 13.0 ,
60.Nm
61lived in
62.Pa /etc .
63