motd-dynamicbanner

Message of the Day dynamic banner. Feel free to clone and improve. Especially the 10-sysinfo could use some love.

Most of this comes form:

• https://chrisrmiller.com/ubuntu-dynamic-motd-on-debian-9/
• https://nickcharlton.net/posts/debian-ubuntu-dynamic-motd.html
• https://github.com/alct/landscape-sysinfo-centos/blob/master/landscape-sysinfo-centos

With small bits of changes to get it to work on Debian 11 (Buster), and with python3.

0. make Debian check for updates (automatically)

https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades

sudo apt install unattended-upgrades apt-listchanges
sudo editor /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

enable (remove //):

      "origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename}-updates";
      "origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename}-proposed-updates";

Save file.

Make sure that we only check for updates, do not install them.

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades > /dev/null
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";
EOF

Enable the service.

sudo systemctl enable unattended-upgrades.service

Test it ...

sudo unattended-upgrade -d

1. install a few packages

sudo apt install lsb-release figlet

'figlet' is the neat thing which draws text graphics.

# figlet Hello World
 _   _      _ _        __        __         _     _
| | | | ___| | | ___   \ \      / /__  _ __| | __| |
| |_| |/ _ \ | |/ _ \   \ \ /\ / / _ \| '__| |/ _` |
|  _  |  __/ | | (_) |   \ V  V / (_) | |  | | (_| |
|_| |_|\___|_|_|\___/     \_/\_/ \___/|_|  |_|\__,_|

2. do the directory and files

Create the directory.

sudo mkdir /etc/update-motd.d

Get the files:

cd <>
git clone https://github.com/casperghst42/motd-dynamicbanner.git
cd motd-dynamicbanner/files
sudo cp * /etc/update-motd.d
sudo chmod +x /etc/update-motd.d/*

2.1 two different sysinfo's

There are two different sysinfo's: 10-sysinfo 10-sysinfo-debian

Switch between thenm by adding or removing the executable flag.

3. make sure that the orignal motd is not shown

sudo mv /etc/motd /etc/motd.orig

4. maks sure that ssh does not show motd

sudo editor /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Change the following

PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog yes

#Banner /etc/issue

Restart sshd

sudo systemctl restart sshd

5. test....

Login to your server using ssh:

 _ __   __ _ ___
| '_ \ / _` / __|
| | | | (_| \__ \
|_| |_|\__,_|___/


Welcome to Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) (5.10.0-19-amd64)

System information as of: Sun Nov 13 15:51:37 CET 2022

System load:	0.47		IP Address:	10.10.42.10
Memory usage:	26.7		System uptime:	5:14 hours
Usage on /:	19%		Swap usage:	0.0%
Local Users:	1		Processes:	333

Linux nasnode 5.10.0-19-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.149-2 (2022-10-21) x86_64
0 updates to install.
0 are security updates.

Last login: Sun Nov 13 14:46:56 2022 from ff80::1

It should produce something like this, but if it does not then figure out why ...