motd(5)                Soda User's Manual                 motd(5)

NAME
            motd - Message of the Day

DESCRIPTION
            The file /etc/motd is automatically displayed to users when
            they log in.  The first section consists of official mes-
            sages from Soda staff & CSUA officers, while the second part
            is a public forum for messages from any Soda user.

            Messages in each section are listed in newest to oldest
            order.  An old message is deleted when people decide they no
            longer want to see it.  Responses to a message follow
            directly after it, and should have "lines" made of charac-
            ters such as | and \ and intelligent indenting to make it
            easier to follow which message is responding to which.
            Entries are often taken more seriously if they are signed,
            although anonymous messages have their place.

EXAMPLES
          2/31 Soda will be shut down and sold for parts next week.
               We hope to use the money to buy a Nintendo for the CSUA.
               \_ What?  What sort of idiots would do this to us?
                   |     \_You twink.   This is the public motd.
                   |        Anyone can make up any lies they want here.
                   \__ If you actually bothered to show up to politburo
                    meetings you'd have a voice in these things. -phillip
                    \_ If they weren't during my physics lab, I would go.

          2/30 Philcompress 2.0 installed.  There are no bugs, only features,
               so don't bother mailing me about them. -phillip

FILES
            /etc/motd.official
          Official announcements from Soda staff & CSUA officers.

            /etc/motd.public
          File that any soda user can edit to place a message in
          the motd.

            /etc/motd
          The file actually seen by users - generated from the
          motd.public and motd.official by the _ m_ t_ d command and
          automatically regenerated every few minutes by _ c_ r_ o_ n.

            ~/.hushlogin
          File that tells many shells not to automatically
          display the motd on login.  Many people use this and
          add a command like "less /etc/motd" to their .login
          file.  If nothing else you should at least have some-
          thing in your .login to view the motd.offical if you
          have a .hushlogin, since the announcements there may be

Printed 5/16/94         http://soda.berkeley.edu                       1

motd(5)                Soda User's Manual                 motd(5)

          very important to your account and Soda Staff reserves
          the right to ignore any question you mail to them for
          which the answer is in the motd.

NOTES
            This is pretty unique to soda.  Most machines have an motd
            devoted solely to important system announcements.

            There is no protection against two users editing the
            motd.public at the same time.  If your editor complains the
            file has changed since it loaded it, the polite thing to do
            is not save your changes, but change the updated file so you
            don't delete the other person's message.

SEE ALSO
            alt.motd Usenet newsgroup.