Most SSH servers issue a “message of the day” file when you log in to them, generally located at /etc/motd. This file can contain anything from news about the server to random ASCII art but sitting and typing in ANSI colour codes to emphasize text takes time.

This program was written to make it easy to generate MOTD files that contain bold and underline formatting along with the 8 colours you can use.

Currently the program allows you to output as raw ASCII (control characters saved as ASCII 027) or as the characters `027 (this is suitable for pasting into the editor joe, which I used before I discovered vim).

The “raw” output option is recommended, then copy the file straight over your existing /etc/motd using SCP or similar.

There is a subtle irony that it is a Windows program to create MOTD files for Unix servers however it was written when I was remotely administering Linux machines and had no access to them as a desktop development environment

Screenshots

Download

Download the full setup package – which includes all necessary dependencies