Custom MOTD For The Raspberry Pi

motd

With so many uses for a Raspberry Pi in a headless configuration – especially with the impending release of the Raspi Model A – we’re surprised it has taken so long for someone to send in a way to create a custom message of the day that is displayed whenever you SSH into everyone’s favorite Linux board.

A MOTD is used by servers to display messages to new users, or simply system information for server admins. It’s a simple text file stored in /etc/motd, but with some proper beardly Unix wizardry it’s possible to display uptime, free memory, and even the weather wherever the Raspi is located.

[yanewby] over on the Raspberry Pi forums created a nice little MOTD that grabs weather data from the Internet and displays it alongside an ASCII rendering of the Raspberry Pi logo. Of course like everything in Unix, this MOTD can be modified to do just about anything, from checking your Twitter to sending a text message to your phone.

32 thoughts on “Custom MOTD For The Raspberry Pi

    1. Same feelings here. The comment section can be full of unwarranted negativity but the criticism today is far from groundless.
      This isn’t a hack, it’s a bad tutorial for a menial script that tries to emulate motd/ssh banner.

  1. Hate to add my first Notahack in the years I’ve been reading this but.., This is stuff we mastered when I started learning Unix (System V, yeah!) when I was 16. That back-quote is some clever stuff! But yeah, using shell-scripts and the STANDARD SYSTEM FUNCTION that is motd… If it’s in the manual (ha! ha!) then it’s not a hack!

  2. I think I’ll submit a tutorial on using cowsay instead of motd, that will blow everyone’s minds!! I’ll even obfuscate my uptime so no one can hax0r me!

    Better yet, I think I’ll file my RPi down to a razor edge and throw it at the moron who greenlighted this “hack”. At least that takes some skill and effort.

  3. It would be handy if Hack-a-Day would add some sort of Not-a-Hack voting feature, which would force them to reconsider the particular “hack” when clicked enough times. Echoing the other commenters, The ASCII-art raspberry is nice, but hardly HaD-worthy, and the rest of the hack is done poorly and far from original.

  4. Nnnnnnnneeeeeerrrrrdddddsssss!!!!
    Seriously Hackday is supposed to be a community. Quit infighting. Just because you think this is a low level hack doesn’t mean you should piss all over it. If you’re a so called Nix expert why wouldn’t you want low level people to be able to learn from the hackaday resource?

Leave a Reply to EirinnCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.