Uses motd
, issue
, and profile
to show helper messages before/at login.
Useful in situations where a desktop environment is not available and information is communicated through the terminal.
The following messages will show after installing console-login-helper-messages
and enabling the issuegen.service
, issuegen.path
, motdgen.service
, motdgen.path
units.
/etc/ssh
matching the regex ssh_host_*_key
, before login as an issueeth0
, before login as an issueThe following enables the motd
and issue
messages to show at boot:
systemctl enable issuegen.path issuegen.service motdgen.path motdgen.service
The profile
messages are enabled by default by a symlink from /etc/profile.d
at install.
The following disables the motd
and issue
messages from showing at boot:
systemctl disable issuegen.path issuegen.service motdgen.path motdgen.service
The profile
messages can be disabled only by uninstalling console-login-helper-messages-profile
.
motd
files to display can be dropped into /etc/motd.d
, /run/motd.d
, or /usr/lib/motd.d
(displayed by sshd
with the latest PAM installed). This is by default available on Fedora (without installing console-login-helper-messages
).Additional issue
files to display can be dropped into /etc/issue.d
(displayed by agetty
). This is also by default available on Fedora.
To have a message appended to the same motd
file generated by motdgen.service
, the files to append can be dropped in /etc/console-login-helper-messages/motd.d
or /run/console-login-helper-messages/motd.d
issue
messages to append to the same issue
file generated by issuegen.service
can be dropped in /etc/console-login-helper-messages/issue.d
or or /run/console-login-helper-messages/issue.d
motd
by motdgen.service
may be silenced or overridden by placing a file at /etc/motd.d/console-login-helper-messages.motd
. A symlink to /dev/null
can also be used for silencing.issue
generated by issuegen.service
can be silenced only by uninstalling console-login-helper-messages-issuegen
.If a message is not showing, it could be because a symlink required to show the message was deleted. To recreate the symlinks, the following command can be used:
systemd-tmpfiles --create
To manually regenerate the motd
or issue
, the following commands can be used respectively:
systemctl start motdgen.service systemctl start issuegen.service
Let x
denote {motd,issue}
.
- x
gen scripts source files from /etc/console-login-helper-messages/x.d
, /run/console-login-helper-messages/x.d
, and /usr/lib/console-login-helper-messages/x.d
, and generate a file at /run/x.d/40_console-login-helper-messages.x
- Information about the system is sourced by running commands such as rpm-ostree upgrade --check
, looking in directories such as /etc/ssh
, or other ways like udev
rules dropping files into /run/console-login-helper-messages/issue.d
. More details are best explained by looking at the scripts in usr/lib/console-login-helper-messages/issuegen
or usr/lib/console-login-helper-messages/motdgen
.
- The systemd units issuegen.service
and motdgen.service
are oneshot units whose job is to generate the messages at /run/x.d/40_console-login-helper-messages.x
.
- The systmed units issuegen.path
and motdgen.path
are used to check if a user dropped a file in /etc/console-login-helper-messages/x.d
, and regenerate the messages.
- A symlink /etc/issue.d/console-login-helper-messages.issue -> /run/issue.d/console-login-helper-messages.issue
is created as agetty will only look for files in /etc/issue.d
as of today, so a symlink to the generated one is required.
- A symlink /etc/profile.d/console-login-helper-messages-profile.sh -> /usr/share/console-login-helper-messages/console-login-helper-messages-profile.sh
is created in order for the profile script to run.
TODO:
- note the PAM, sshd agetty versions, and distributions that use these versions
- list distributions that have the required functionality by default (where console-login-helper-messages
has been tested)