Here is How You Can Change SSH Welcome Message, Also Known as Message of the Day or MOTD on Ubuntu Server on Rackspace Cloud By Simple Way. The default message is somewhat like Welcome to Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-29-virtual x86_64). Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/, System information as of etceteras not only boring but also useless because this Message of the Day or MOTD on Ubuntu Server can be really informative as it can print message, system info dynamically from script. The default is an example, depending on the vendor, the message can be changed at compilation level, like Digital Ocean outputs a different message.
How To Change SSH Welcome Message (Ubuntu, Rackspace Cloud)
After doing the change, one of our server gives output like this :
That “Welcome to Master Instance of thecustomizewindows.com. PublicNet address is…” is a changed, custom message. We can understand that we are on the Master instance. If we need the PublicNet or ServiceNet IP of own server, we can easily copy. With usage of various API, Programs, these message can be more useful and even colorful!
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Steps To Change SSH Welcome Message
It is very easy! Official documentation is huge :
1 | https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UpdateMotd |
This is a daemon and can suck some memory. One can reduce the memory consumption by printing non-dynamic text message. Stopping the daemon can mask fatal warning.
If you have some experience on shell scripting, it will give you more ideas. Here we are only giving example of easy simple editing. First SSH to the server. Change directory to the /etc/update-motd.d and list the files :
1 | cd /etc/update-motd.d && ls |
You will see there are three files :
1 | 00-header 10-help-text 91-release-upgrade |
That 00-header is the file which on Rackspace, Ubuntu 14.04 by default reads. So, we can open it with nano :
1 | nano 00-header |
After lot of commented out lines, you will find this :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | [ -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 printf "Welcome to %s (%s %s %s)\n" "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" "$(uname -o)" "$(uname -r)" "$(uname.... |
That last line with printf actually outputs the things on ssh. If you change it to simple plain text, you’ll get a plain text output. It is better to take a backup copy before editing. Save it, SSH after few minutes, you will see the change on login.
You can put scary message like “You got in to the system, thats true; but we are watching you! You can exit from SSH but we will find you in real life.” Getting such a message is not very comfortable to a script kiddie who somehow got the access. Technically, you should not point towards any location where you keep passwords and other stuffs. Instead you can print misleading info.
