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Problem:

The following text is shown for all non-root users when logging in via SSH:

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

Configuration:

  • My /etc/ssh/sshd_config includes:

    PrintMotd no   
PrintLastLog no

  • PrintMotd no and PrintLastLog no are overriden by PAM in /etc/pam.d/sshd

    session    optional     pam_motd.so 
session     optional     pam_lastlog.so   never showfailed

  • /var/run/motd is symlinked to /etc/motd:

    /etc/motd -> /var/run/motd

  • The folder /etc/update-motd.d/ is empty!

Question:

How can I disable the display of the above notice for non-root users?

Zanna
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Nicolai Fröhlich
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    The problem originated from my very restrictive permissions (the base home folder has chmod 500 ) to avoid littering my home directory with all kinds of dotfiles and cache stuff that i don't have created myself. Therefore the folder/file `~/.cache/motd.legal-displayed` could not be created which lead to the legal notice getting displayed over and over again. The notice is ONLY displayed if the file is not present so that new users should see it once upon first login. – Nicolai Fröhlich Nov 27 '13 at 16:50

3 Answers3

25
  • clear/remove /etc/legal that contains the message

... or ...

  • create a file ~/.cache/motd.legal-displayed

Read more: ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1511335

Lode
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samgabbay
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1

I use Ubuntu 20.04, a release newer than sam's answer. The very old thread cited there was closed 11 years ago and doesn't mention the method I used to fix the problem: emptying the 3 files in /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/messages.

root:/var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/messages# ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 11 03:10 apt-pre-invoke-esm-service-status
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 11 03:10 motd-esm-service-status
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 11 03:09 ubuntu-no-warranty

I found it (and some other files I ignored) by executing this:

find / -xdev -type f -exec grep -l 'ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY' {} \;
Jeff Holt
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0

I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 (yep; I'm a Luddite). The tools run at startup are all in /etc/update-motd.d:

griscom@nob:/$ ls /etc/update-motd.d/
00-header     88-esm-announce            91-release-upgrade      98-fsck-at-reboot
10-help-text  90-updates-available       92-unattended-upgrades  98-reboot-required
50-motd-news  91-contract-ua-esm-status  95-hwe-eol
griscom@nob:/$

These are all executable; if you mark them as not executable then they won't be run at startup. Here's my current state, after disabling a number of the (to me) useless announcements and checks:

griscom@nob:/$ ls -l /etc/update-motd.d/
total 48
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1250 Nov 10 09:21 00-header
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1157 Apr  9  2018 10-help-text
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4992 Aug 13  2020 50-motd-news
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  107 Nov 10 09:30 88-esm-announce
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  127 Nov 10 09:22 90-updates-available
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  113 Nov 10 09:29 91-contract-ua-esm-status
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  299 Jun  3  2019 91-release-upgrade
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  165 Nov 25  2019 92-unattended-upgrades
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  129 Nov 12  2018 95-hwe-eol
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  173 Nov 10 09:26 98-fsck-at-reboot
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  175 Nov 10 09:26 98-reboot-required
griscom@nob:/$

So, to disable one of these (say, 10-help-text), do:

sudo chmod -x /etc/update-motd.d/10-help-text
Daniel Griscom
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