[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#437176: Please provide an 'update-motd' script instead of handling motd updates in the initscript

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

Package: initscripts
Version: 2.86.ds1-7
Tags: wishlist

Right now users wishing to edit motd just have two options:

- Do not point /etc/motd to /var/run/motd and instead point to a static file,
  and edit that file
    Advantage: Inmediate visibility
    Disadvantage: Motd cannot be updated with dynamic info

- Edit /etc/motd.tail
    Advantage: Preserve dynamic info
    Disadvantage: Will only be seen after a system reboot

Motd(1) does not describe this (will issue a different bug) but IMHO we
should have an 'update-motd' script to update motd, even if it just did the 
following (from bootmisc.sh's script):

    # Update motd
    uname -snrvm > /var/run/motd
    [ -f /etc/motd.tail ] && cat /etc/motd.tail >> /var/run/motd

And the 'update-motd' script should be run by bootmisc.sh.

That way admin's could update the motd by editing /etc/motd.tail and just 
running 'update-motd' and could have a system that had a) Inmediate
visibility and b) Preserve dynamic info

Notice also that the script could

a) check if /etc/motd exists and recreate it if it didn't
b) warn (if /etc/motd exists but does not point to /var/run/motd), that 
   the contents will not be shown to the user.
c) warn (if the user still has the EDITMOTD=no from older releases), that
   this variable is obsolete

So it could actually be a little bit more than a 2-line script :)

If the initscripts' maintainers are willing to go this way I can provide a
working patch for this.


Regards

Javier

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