Control: tag -1 +patch Hi,
On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 02:07:36PM +0100, Stuart Prescott wrote: > Package: manpages > Version: 3.42-1 > Severity: normal > > The handling of /etc/motd in wheezy has changed appreciably compared to > squeeze. It would be great if motd(5) and motd.tail(5) could be updated > accordingly for wheezy. Thanks for your report. > The relevant changelog entry is: > > sysvinit (2.88dsf-24) experimental; urgency=low > > [ Roger Leigh ] > * initscripts: > - Don't generate or touch /etc/motd. Instead, the dynamic part of > /etc/motd is created as /run/motd.dynamic, leaving /etc/motd > entirely under the control of the system administrator. If > /etc/motd is a symlink to /run/motd, /etc/motd.tail is moved > back to /etc/motd. Closes: #353229, #624391, #668307. /etc/motd > is not removed if initscripts is purged, since it's not owned by > initscripts. > - By default, /run/motd is just the output of uname, preserving the > existing behaviour. However, should the administrator wish to > include dynamic information in the motd, they may write scripts > to update /run/motd.dynamic as they please. Closes: #437176. > - motd generation is split from bootlogs into a separate motd > init script. > > Looking at /etc/init.d/motd, I think references to /run/motd above should > actually be /run/motd.dynamic. motd.tail(5) can just be deleted. Here is a patch I intend to apply to motd(5) for 3.44 (that upstream released yesterday), comments are welcome. It also mentions that pam_motd is used to display the motd, it's no longer login(1). (that specific change may be upstreamed, but I didn't check other distribs behaviour yet). -- Simon Paillard
diff --git a/man5/motd.5 b/man5/motd.5 index dc3abe1..8083d51 100644 --- a/man5/motd.5 +++ b/man5/motd.5 @@ -28,26 +28,29 @@ motd \- message of the day .SH DESCRIPTION The contents of \fI/etc/motd\fP are displayed by -.BR login (1) +.BR pam_motd (8) after a successful login but just before it executes the login shell. The abbreviation "motd" stands for "message of the day", and this file has been traditionally used for exactly that (it requires much less disk space than mail to all users). -On Debian GNU/Linux this file is a symbolic link pointing to -.IR /var/run/motd . -The contents of this file are regenerated upon every system boot -based on the contents of -.IR /etc/motd.tail . +On Debian GNU/Linux, the content of +.I /run/motd.dynamic +is also displayed. +This file is generated by +.I /etc/init.d/motd +at boot. .SH FILES .I /etc/motd .br -.I /etc/motd.tail +.I /run/motd.dynamic +.br +.I /etc/init.d/motd .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR login (1), -.BR motd.tail (5), .BR issue (5) +.BR pam_motd(8) .SH COLOPHON This page is part of release 3.44 of the Linux .I man-pages
