MOTD maker

Note: This page is archived. The program hasn’t been modified in fifteen years but is still downloaded regularly, so I have left it here for future generations of monochrome adverse administrators.

Most SSH servers issue a “message of the day” file when you log in, 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 in the dark days 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/Linux servers. This is not lost on me.

Screenshots

Download

• Download the full setup package - which includes all necessary dependencies.