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Change Linux SSH Welcome message

This guide explains how to change the Linux Welcome message.

After each login via SSH a welcome message appears. If this text is annoying and/or you just want to change it, you can do this by two methods.

Change text-only welcome message

If a text-only greeting is sufficient, you should choose this variant. Shell commands cannot be executed with this variant.

Edit motd

sudo nano /etc/motd

Delete the old text and write our own text into it. Save with CTRL + X followed by Y close with RETURN.

tip

You can enhance your welcome message with ASCII text, a good generator can be found here.

Change welcome message via. Bash script

The far more powerful method is to use a Bash script. Among other things, colors can be specified for this purpose.

Edit bash.bashrc

Additional commands can be added at the end of the file.

caution

All desired outputs must be specified by command (e.g echo) not as stand alone text!

sudo nano /etc/bash.bashrc

Colorizing Shell - echo

info

A complete guide on how to colorize text can be found here

Use the following command for writing colored text.

echo -e "\e[COLORmSample Text\e[0m"