motd(5) File Formats Manual motd(5)

motd - message of the day

The contents of /etc/motd are displayed by login(1) 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).

/etc/motd

login(1), issue(5)

2024-05-02 Linux man-pages 6.9.1