Re: motd handling in jessie
On 24/01/15 15:18, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> writes:
>
>> Please, no. Under normal circumstances, the only dynamic bit of the
>> motd comes from uname, and only changes on reboot; updating it via cron
>> just wastes cycles and adds noise to syslog.
>
>> I'm not particularly convinced that even the existing uname line has
>> much value. So what about this: why don't we move all of that machinery
>> to an update-motd package or similar (priority optional), which can hook
>> into PAM as desired to display its message, and have the default motd of
>> the base system be completely static, with nothing run at boot *or*
>> login?
>
> I do feel like we're losing some value by not showing users the uname
> information by default, and I'd like to still see us update that at boot.
> I certainly agree that running shell code from PAM by default is not a
> good idea.
>
> That said, by far the best way to handle MOTD is to write out a static
> file using whatever configuration management system you're using, based on
> all the information that it gathers about the system (via something like
> ohai or facter). That lets you flesh out the MOTD with lots of details
> that are actually interesting. But that's not something Debian needs to
> be doing; each site can handle that.
Sort of off topic, but as far as I can tell, the historical purpose of
MOTD was to send a message to all users of a system. Is it still used
for this? Are there other uses of it?
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