dynmotd

Dynamic MOTD (Message of the Day) for Linux distributions with distribution-specific color coding and cloud provider support.

Features

• Distribution-specific colors based on official logo colors
• Cloud provider detection: AWS, Azure, GCP, OpenStack
• OS-specific modules: RHEL, Rocky Linux, Raspberry Pi, WSL
• User exclusion: Hide MOTD for specific users
• Extensible: Add custom scripts in /etc/dynmotd.d/
• Fortune integration: Random quotes (optional)

Supported Distributions

Distribution	Color
Ubuntu	Orange (#E95420)
Debian	Wine Red (#A80030)
RHEL/CentOS	Red (#EE0000)
Rocky Linux	Green (#10B981)
AlmaLinux	Dark Blue (#0F4266)
Oracle Linux	Red (#F80000)
Fedora	Blue (#3C6EB4)
SUSE	Green (#73BA25)
Arch Linux	Blue (#1793D1)
Manjaro	Green (#35BF5C)
Alpine Linux	Blue (#0D597F)
Raspbian	Raspberry (#C51A4A)

Requirements

Standard tools (available on most Linux distributions):

• curl
• awk
• xargs
• basename
• grep
• lsb-release (for Debian-based)
• fortune (optional)

Installation

Automatic Installation

sudo ./install.sh

This will:

1. Install dynmotd to /usr/local/bin/
2. Create symlink dm for quick access
3. Set up /etc/profile.d/dynmotd.sh for automatic display on login
4. Create /etc/dynmotd.conf for user exclusion
5. Create /etc/dynmotd.d/ for custom scripts
6. Auto-detect OS and cloud provider, installing appropriate modules

Manual Installation

# 1. Disable default MOTD (optional)
sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
# Set: PrintMotd no

# 2. Disable PAM MOTD (if applicable)
sudo vi /etc/pam.d/login
# Comment: # session optional pam_motd.so

# 3. Install dynmotd
sudo cp dynmotd /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/dynmotd

# 4. Set up auto-display on login
echo "/usr/local/bin/dynmotd" | sudo tee /etc/profile.d/dynmotd.sh
sudo chmod 644 /etc/profile.d/dynmotd.sh

# 5. Create custom scripts directory
sudo mkdir -p /etc/dynmotd.d

Uninstallation

sudo ./uninstall.sh

Configuration

Excluding Users

Edit /etc/dynmotd.conf to exclude users from seeing the MOTD:

# /etc/dynmotd.conf
# Add one username per line
root
serviceaccount
jenkins

Custom Scripts

Place custom scripts in /etc/dynmotd.d/ with .sh extension. Scripts are executed in alphabetical order.

Naming convention:

• 00_*.sh - OS-specific info
• 01_*.sh - Cloud provider info
• 99_*.sh - Miscellaneous (fortune, etc.)

Available variables (exported by dynmotd):

COLOR_COLUMN    # Bold formatting
COLOR_VALUE     # Distribution color
RESET_COLORS    # Reset to default
DISTRO_COLOR    # Raw distribution color code

Example custom script (/etc/dynmotd.d/50_docker.sh):

if command -v docker > /dev/null; then
  DOCKER_STATUS=$(systemctl is-active docker 2>/dev/null || echo "not installed")
  echo -e "===== DOCKER ==================================================================
 ${COLOR_COLUMN}${COLOR_VALUE}- Status${RESET_COLORS}.............: ${DOCKER_STATUS}"
fi

Cloud Provider Support

Provider	Detection Method	Info Displayed
AWS	IMDSv2 token	External IP, Instance ID/Type, Zone
Azure	Metadata API	External IP, Resource Group, VM ID/Size, Location
GCP	Metadata header	External IP, Project, Machine Type, Image, VPC, Zone, Scopes
OpenStack	/openstack/ endpoint	External IP, Instance ID/Type, Hostname, Project, Zone

All cloud metadata requests have a 2-second timeout to prevent delays.

Project Structure

dynmotd/
├── dynmotd              # Main script
├── install.sh           # Installation script
├── uninstall.sh         # Uninstallation script
├── 00_raspberry_pi.sh   # Raspberry Pi module
├── 00_rhel.sh           # RHEL/Oracle Linux module
├── 00_rocky.sh          # Rocky Linux module
├── 00_wsl.sh            # Windows Subsystem for Linux module
├── 01_aws.sh            # AWS EC2 metadata
├── 01_azure.sh          # Azure VM metadata
├── 01_gcp.sh            # GCP Compute Engine metadata
├── 01_openstack.sh      # OpenStack metadata
├── 99_fortune.sh        # Fortune quotes
└── example/             # Example configurations

Sample Output

===============================================================================
 - Hostname...........: myserver (192.168.1.100)
 - OS version.........: Rocky Linux 9.2 (Blue Onyx)
 - Kernel release.....: 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2.x86_64
 - Users..............: Currently 2 user(s) logged on
===============================================================================
 - CPUs...............: 4 x GenuineIntel/Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.80GHz
 - Load average.......: 0.15 - 0.10 - 0.05 (1-5-15 min)
 - Memory.............: 16Gi - 4.2Gi - 10Gi (total-used-free)
 - Swap...............: 2Gi - 0B - 2Gi (total-used-free)
 - Processes..........: 156 running - 2 background - 0 zombies
 - System uptime......: 45 days 12 hours 30 minutes 15 seconds
===== ROCKY LINUX INFO ========================================================
 - Tuned profile......: virtual-guest
===== GCP INSTANCE METADATA ===================================================
 - External IP........: 34.56.78.90
 - Project ID.........: my-project-123
 - Machine Type.......: e2-medium
 - Image..............: rocky-linux-9-v20230615
 - Preemptible........: FALSE
 - VPC................: default
 - Zone...............: us-central1-a
 - Additional Scopes..: [compute.readonly]
===== FORTUNE =================================================================
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
                -- Alan Kay
===============================================================================

Credits

This project is a fork of Neutrollized/dynmotd.

Original author: Neutrollized - Thanks for the original work!

Maintained by: StackOps

What's new in this fork

• Distribution-specific color coding based on official logo colors
• OpenStack cloud provider support
• Rocky Linux and Alpine Linux support
• User exclusion configuration (/etc/dynmotd.conf)
• Exported color variables for custom scripts
• Timeout on all cloud metadata requests
• Improved error handling and code consistency