You must be wondering how to change the system login banner. It is a very simple task. You login banner is stored in /etc/issue file. It is a text file which contains a message or system identification to be printed before the login prompt. Just open file in vi text editor:
# vi /etc/issue
Add/modify text as per your needs. In your /etc/issue file you can include certain escape codes to display the system name, date and time etc. All escape codes consist of a backslash (\) immediately followed
by one of the letters explained below:
- d : Insert the current date.
- s : Insert the system name, the name of the operating system.
- l : Insert the name of the current tty line.
- m : Insert the architecture identifier of the machine, eg. i486
- n :Insert the nodename of the machine, also known as the hostname.
- o :Insert the domainname of the machine.
- r : Insert the release number of the OS, eg. 1.1.9.
- t :Insert the current time.
- u : Insert the number of current users logged in.
- U : Insert the string “N user(s)” or “N users” where N is the number of current users logged in
- v : Insert the version of the OS, eg. the buildâ€Âdate etc.
An example of /etc/issue file with escape codes:
1) Open /etc/issue file
# vi /etc/issue
2) Append/edit/add following text to file:
This is \n.\o (\s \m \r) \t
3) Save file and exit to shell prompt.
My baaner printed before the login prompt as follows:
This is server.nixcraft.in (Linux i686 2.6.13-web100) 20:01:30 server login:
Please note that other Linux distrobution such as Debian also support /etc/issue file, so you can edit it to display login banner.