Hi,

Just a quick question, I’m running CentOS machine and have multiple friends who log into the server via SSH. Is there a way so when they log onto the system I can set personal welcome messages unlike the global motd witch does it for everyone?

Sure just add it to one of the individual start file(s) such as .bash_profile or .profile or .bashrc in the user's home directory.

vi ~user/.bashrc
Go to the end of the file and add a simple echo statement:
echo "Welcome to my world, Bill. Try not to trash it up much."
Save the file. On next login it will echo the line.

Where "user" is the login name you've given the user.

thanks alot pal, worked out great.

one suggestion: use a file like /etc/MOTD or something similar to contain your message, then put "cat /etc/MOTD" in their profile instead of "echo blah". This way, you can change the message in one place for all users rather than in one place for each user. If you want to personalize it, there are lots of options there... This was a very popular thing some years ago

He wanted personalized messages so a single file wouldn't help unless he was just doing it like mail list where he's inserting the user's name and/or other information in the text.

vi /etc/motd.sh

Save the file then "chmod 755 /etc/motd.sh".

He could then set "export FRIEND=Bill" in Bill's bashrc/profile and "export FRIEND=Sara" in Sara's bashrc/profile. Then instead of cat as you say he would simply put "/etc/motd.sh" after the FRIEND line in bashrc/profile. It would get the variable ${FRIEND} and insert the line so that:

Bill would see:
"Hi Bill, welcome to my system. Try not to trash the place up."

But Sara would see:
Hi Sara, welcome to my system. Try not to trash the place up.

Later he could modify /etc/motd.sh so that it said
echo "Hi ${FRIEND}, just wanted you to know that the wife and I are going to see Cirque de Soleil tonight so won't be able to help you if you have issues with your login."

you're right, I missed his original comment "unlike the global motd".

i've seen some admins get really nutso with their MOTDs. Everything from a scenario like the one described above to a database-driven mini-app that gave people their horoscope

used method works well and as for going nuts ive used askii in my motd. mabye im mad oh well thanks anyways.

Hi -- My enthusiasm for Linux and computational physics has
lead me to start a small lab in which all the clients have
nfs-mounted the same server drive. This gives the students
visibility to their files and configuration files no matter which
client they log into. I have some cute routines for
propagating password changes -- and they also propagate an motd
file. Problem is, most of students login through gdm, so they
never see an motd.

I have two questions

1) Is there a comparable facility for gdm?
(I see there is a "postlogin" feature)
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/docs/gdmtalk.pdf

2) Even if students log in through GDM -- many of them will eventually launch a
terminal. I could edit their .bashrc as follows:

The problem is that if they login remotely (ssh), they'll see the motd twice --
not elegant. So I need to check something. There are some posts about shopt.
Is that they way to go? I welcome suggestions.

Rather than piggy backing on an old and off topic thread you should open a new thread for your questions because:

1) Only the people that subscribed to this thread originally will see it and only if they choose to look at it again.
2) There is no guarantee that the folks that saw this original thread will be able to assist with your new question.
3) Posting a new thread makes it go to "zero replies" meaning lots of people will see it and you're more likely to get a helpful response.