This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:

This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:
---
Title : Disable motd news or (parts of) the dynamic motd on Ubuntu
Author : Remy van Elst
Date : 18-03-2019
Last update : 19-03-2019
URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Disable_dynamic_motd_and_motd_news_spam_on_Ubuntu_18.04.html
Format : Markdown/HTML
---

On Ubuntu 18.04 and up, when you login via SSH you are greeted with some news
via `motd` (message of the day) that includes advertisements and messages from
Canonical (via `motd.ubuntu.com`). This small guide shows you how to disable
news, (parts of) the dynamic motd or just revert back to a plain old `/etc/motd`
file.

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### (Dynamic) motd

Since 2009 Ubuntu has had a dynamic `motd`. It uses a bunch of files and scripts
in `/etc/update-motd/` to construct a message. I think since Ubuntu 17.04, but
I'm not sure, the online service was introduced. It's just a webpage that your
server [checks every 12 hours and puts in a file][2] that ends up in your
`motd`. [You can visist motd.ubuntu.com in your browser][3] to check the current
news. (But why would you when it's in your face when you login)

![][4]

> The dynamic motd page in a browser

Here's what it currently looks like:

Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-43-generic x86_64)

* Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com
* Management: https://landscape.canonical.com
* Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantage

System information as of Mon Mar 18 05:58:11 UTC 2019

System load: 0.11 Processes: 100
Usage of /: 40.1% of 24.06GB Users logged in: 0
Memory usage: 45% IP address for eth0: 10.184.24.87
Swap usage: 0%

=> There is 1 zombie process.

* Ubuntu's Kubernetes 1.14 distributions can bypass Docker and use containerd
directly, see https://bit.ly/ubuntu-containerd or try it now with

snap install microk8s --channel=1.14/beta --classic

Get cloud support with Ubuntu Advantage Cloud Guest:
http://www.ubuntu.com/business/services/cloud

* Canonical Livepatch is available for installation.
- Reduce system reboots and improve kernel security. Activate at:
https://ubuntu.com/livepatch

0 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

Lot's of useful information (load, zombie processes, reboot required, updates),
but also stuff I'm not interested in (Canonical live patching, support
kubernetes).

It's also a way for canonical to measure how many ubuntu servers there are
active. If every server connects at least every 12 hours back to the mothership,
they will be able to get measurements on when and where Ubuntu is used. Nothing
wrong with that, but I don't like the fact that they shoved it in via the
`motd`. Yes it could be useful for a `heartbleed` scale problem but my guess is
that this was aimed at metrics for Canonical first and they sought an excuse why
users might want it later. But again, nothing wrong with that. They let you
disable it and are open about it.

### Disabling motd news

Disabling the news part (the pingback to canonical) is simple. Edit the
following file:

vim /etc/default/motd-news

Change `ENABLED=1` to `ENABLED=0`.

That's it for the small news part. If you dont want to see the other messages
you need to disable those as well.

### Disabling parts of the dynamic motd

In `/etc/update-motd.d` there are a bunch of scripts:

ls /etc/update-motd.d/
00-header 50-motd-news 80-livepatch 95-hwe-eol 98-reboot-required
10-help-text 51-cloudguest 90-updates-available 97-overlayroot
50-landscape-sysinfo 80-esm 91-release-upgrade 98-fsck-at-reboot

Some of them are useful for system information or to see if your ubuntu version
is still supported, but a few are, if you're not using canonical services, IMHO
not useful. These scripts must be executable [according to the manpage][5]. By
removing the execute bit you can have some scripts not shown in your dynamic
motd:

chmod -x /etc/update-motd.d/80-livepatch
chmod -x /etc/update-motd.d/51-cloudguest
chmod -x /etc/update-motd.d/10-help-text

I do find it usefull to have some information in my motd, so with these three
disabled, the canonical spam is gone and actual information remains:

Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-43-generic x86_64)

System information as of Mon Mar 18 06:27:15 UTC 2019

System load: 0.12 Processes: 101
Usage of /: 40.0% of 24.06GB Users logged in: 0
Memory usage: 42% IP address for eth0: 10.184.24.87
Swap usage: 0%

=> There is 1 zombie process.

0 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

*** System restart required ***
Last login: Mon Mar 18 06:27:00 2019 from 192.10.20.30

### Disabling dynamic motd entirely

I'm unsure how to actually do this since the documentation is not that clear
about it. The manpage for [dynamic motd][5] refers to the manpage for
[pam_motd][6] and both are unclear.

There seems to be not dynamic motd systemd service:

systemctl list-unit-files | grep motd
motd-news.service static
motd.service masked
motd-news.timer enabled

and on my system there was no actual `/etc/motd` file, just the dynamic scripts.

But the manpage states that `pam` is responsible for the motd so let's check
there:

grep motd /etc/pam.d/*
/etc/pam.d/login:session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic
/etc/pam.d/login:session optional pam_motd.so noupdate
[...]
/etc/pam.d/sshd:session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic
/etc/pam.d/sshd:session optional pam_motd.so noupdate

The manpage says the following:

pam_motd is a PAM module that can be used to display arbitrary motd (message of the day)
files after a successful login. By default the /etc/motd file is shown
[...]
The suggested usage for /etc/pam.d/login is:
session optional pam_motd.so motd=/etc/motd
[...]
noupdate
Don't run the scripts in /etc/update-motd.d to refresh the motd file.

Comment out the first line from the two `pam.d` files:

#session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic

Place something in the `/etc/motd` file to test:

echo "Can't touch this!" > /etc/motd

Try logging in now. On my system, I got the message twice on my terminal. Why?
Because `OpenSSH`, by default sets the `PrintMotd` option to `yes`:

PrintMotd
Specifies whether sshd(8) should print /etc/motd when a user logs in interactively.
(On some systems it is also printed by the shell, /etc/profile, or equivalent.) The
default is "yes".

Change that to `no` to have `pam` do the motd printing.

### Conclusion

Disabling the entire `dynamic-motd` can be done by commenting out two lines in
`/etc/pam.d/sshd`:

session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic
session optional pam_motd.so noupdate

and letting `OpenSSH` handle the `motd`. You need to put stuff in `/etc/motd`
yourself for that to work. `OpenSSH` does this by default if that file exists.

Disabling specific parts of the dynamic motd can be done by removing scripts (or
making them not executable) in `/etc/update-motd.d/`.

Disabling the pingback to the canonical mothership, the `motd-news` part can be
done by changing `ENABLED=1` to `ENABLED=0` in `/etc/default/motd-news`.

Never thought that a simple message on your console could be so complex and used
for statistics and spam.

[1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212
[2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/1701068/comments/11
[3]: https://motd.ubuntu.com
[4]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/motd-ubuntu.png
[5]: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man5/update-motd.5.html
[6]: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man8/pam_motd.8.html

---

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