gHacks technology news » Polls

Keep logged in users informed with motd

Jack Wallen — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:22:09 +0000

If you have users that log into a server, or a desktop (for whatever reason) you might want to take advantage of the Linux Message Of The Day file. This file resides in the /etc directory and, when a user logs in, the contents of that file are displayed every time a user logs into that machine. Of course there is a bit of a trick involved. If you write your own nice /etc/motd file every time you reboot that machine part of the /etc/motd file contents will be replaced by new information. Easily we can make the portion of the file that is not rewritten suite our needs. And with a little trickery we can fine tune the entire motd to our satisfaction.

In reality the message you see upon login is a combination of two files: /etc/motd and /etc/motd.tail. The former file is the file that is regenerated upon boot. The latter file contains static information. The first thing we will do is change the /etc/motd file so that, upon loggin in, the users can get system (or company) specific information. Once that is done we’ll trick /etc/motd.tail into getting content different than that from /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh.

/etc/motd.tail

The first thing you should is open up your /etc/motd.tail file in your favorite text editor. When I open up that file in Ubuntu Server 8.10 the contents look like:

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.

To access official Ubuntu documentation, please visit:
http://help.ubuntu.com/

I want to change that content so I know exactly which server I am on when I log in. So let’s say I want to change that to say:

welcome to the Ubuntu Server. have a good time and do not break anything.

Now when I log into my Ubuntu Server I will see the following motd:

welcome to the Ubuntu Server. have a good time and do not break anything.

System information as of Mon Apr 6 15:00:01 EDT 2009

System load: 0.0 Swap usage: 0% Users logged in: 1
Usage of /: 18.5% of 13.46GBTemperature: 52 C
Memory usage: 43% Processes: 104

Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/
Last login: Mon Apr 6 15:06:41 2009 from 192.168.1.8

As you can see there is some useful information to be had with this. But you may not want all of your users to see this information. Say you want to first let the users know which server they are on. We’ve already covered that with /etc/motd.tail. But let’s say you also want to send out a message to all users who log onto the server. You can change /etc/motd to reflect that message but when you reboot the machine that message will be replaced. So to get around that we can create a shell script that will over write the information written at bootup. A possible (and overly simple) shell script could look like this:

#!/bin/bash rm /etc/motd touch /etc/motd echo "this is my message" > /etc/motd

Save that file in, say /opt (for example sake we’ll call it /opt/motd_append) and make it executable with the command chmod u+x /opt/motd_append. Now to make sure this command runs we can create an entry at the end of /etc/rc.local like this:

/opt/motd_append

Now when /etc/rc.local runs the script will run and over write the information in /etc/motd. Now when your users log in they will see your special message every time.

Tags: Linux, log in message, message of the day, motd, ubuntu, ubuntu server

About Secret Folders and Cleaning

Martin — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 08:40:57 +0000

I did ask about your secret folder in last weeks poll and surprisingly the majority declined to have one. 38% of all voters said that they do not have a secret folder for files that only they care about which leads to the question why. Do they live alone and don’t have to hide everything in a folder because there is no girlfriend / boyfriend snooping around ? 23% said that their secret folder was bigger than 10 gigabytes which is huge.

The remaining 40% have a secret folder with a size between 1 megabyte and 9999 megabytes. The best method to create and maintain a secret folder ? Use TrueCrypt. Believe me the next poll has nothing to do with the previous one, might be hard to believe I must admit. How often do you clean your computer, better: do you clean it at all ?

The answers are pretty self explanatory. You have the option between once a day, a week, a month, a year and never. I think I probably missed the case where users buy new hardware instead of cleaning the old – Believe me that happens. Maybe not when it comes to expensive hardware like flat screens but definitely when it comes to the keyboard.

Tags: clean, it, pc, poll, question, secret-folder

We all hate mondays

Martin — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 08:49:16 +0000

I’m glad that I can write this on a friday. Last poll asked about your opinion on the worst day of the week – to no surprise monday won that poll with over 50% of all votes. Rather surprising was the second place: Sunday. Not sure why so many people dislike Sunday so much, maybe because many people dislike the fact that you can’t do lots of things on Sundays. Most shops are closed, people tend to stay at home and do not go out to party aso. (as if we would go out and party, we are geeks..)

Friday and Saturday are the best days of the week according to my unbiased poll results which means the overall mood of you should be excellent today. The next poll is hot. Well not really hot but I thought it would be nice to ask a personal question for a change. How big is your secret folder on your computer ? We all know that all kinds of things could be added to a folder that only you know exists on your computer, most of the times it contains pictures and videos .. .. of cars, and things hotter than cars – if you know what I mean.

Tags: new-poll, poll, poll-archive, poll-of-the-week, Polls, random-poll

So you want a forum, huh ?

Martin — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 08:52:09 +0000

Almost half of the users (48%) voted yes on the poll that asked if they would like to have a forum at ghacks while 30% said they did not care and 22% decided that they did not want to see a forum here at my site. I will create a forum because the majority decided that way. I would like to ask you what you would like to see in the new forum, which kind of boards for instance.

I did a quick brainstorming and came up with those:

Ghacks Support – Help related to articles and other difficulties at ghacks.net
Suggestions – How can I improve ghacks
Tech Help – You have a general problem and need help ?

This should not be all of course, so please let me know what you like to see and I quickly add the boards to the forum.

This weeks poll is perfect for Monday mornings, which day of the week do you hate the most ? Make your vote count by voting in the right sidebar. I have a strange feeling that I know which one will make it.. What do you think ?

Tags: poll

A poll is a poll is a poll

Martin — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 09:44:13 +0000

Poll results for “What will you do when Windows Vista comes out” have been analyzed. 60% of all voters said they would do nothing which means they will stick to their old operating system or system. 21% will migrate to Windows Vista, 11% to a *nix system and even 8% to Mac. The big questions is of course, what does vista offer its users that XP does not offer ? Not much from what I can see. It offers some drawbacks on the other hand that I for instance am not willed to tolerate – Trusted Computing anyone ?

As I said earlier, my next system will run on *nix and my old system will keep its XP operating system. The next poll is pretty easy and deals with the following question: would you like to have a forum at ghacks ? I pondered with this decision for some time and one reader asked me about this a few days ago.

I’m still not sure and I thought it would be a nice idea for the new poll to ask you if you would like to have a forum at ghacks. Would you use it, would you avoid it ? Let me know. I think a forum could add great value and user interaction to my site, means lots of work on the other hand..

Tags: ghacks, poll

Polls Polls Polls

Martin — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 07:22:54 +0000

I’am still in Prague and have some time left before my transfer to the airport begins and I decided to create a new poll and analyse the results of the old one. The old poll asked if and which next gen console system you decided to buy when it comes out. 25% of all users will not buy a new system while 22% decided that they would buy a PS3, followed by Wii with 14%, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 + Wii and all of the three with 9%. PS3 + Xbox 360 and PS3 + Wii received 7% respectivly 5% of all votes.

I think it is interesting that the PS3 is still gaining that many voters although it is the most expensive system that comes out in tiny amounts to North America and Japan compared to the Wii and Xbox 360. There will be for example 400000 systems in North America compared to 1000000 Wii systems.

The next poll is a rather personal one. I always wanted to create shirts for ghacks but lacked the skill to create a nice design for such shirts. Well, the design was done by someone else and I thought it would be nice to create a shirt collection for ghacks.

I would like to know how much you would want to pay for a cool ghacks shirt. This will help my decision wether I should order shirts or decide against it. Categories range from nothing, to 12,99$ at the top.

Looking forward to see the results..

Tags: poll

Week 37 Poll Results and New Poll

Martin — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:47:02 +0000

With Amazon unleashing its Unbox on the world and Apple close to start their movie paradise the question for the last poll was almost obvious: How much would you pay for a DVD download ? Amazon charges up to 19,99€ for a movie download and 1,99€ for TV Episodes. Looking at the poll results this seems highly overprized even if you do not take their license agreement into account.

The majority (39%) will not pay for movie downloads at all which suggests that they buy their movies exclusively at local shops. 35% of all voters would not pay more than 5$ for a dvd download and another 15% would pay as much as 7,99$. An additional 6% would pay up to 9,99$ and the last 4% would pay as much as 11,99$ per DVD. All higher priced options got 1% of the votes and can be neglected.

While this poll was answered by tech savy people Amazon might have a different customer base in mind: Families, People who work with a computer but do not understand it. They probably see the price and say: “Hey it’s the same price as in the shop. I can download it and don’t have to go into the shop. Great”.

My short take on a shop that I would buy in:

no DRM
fair use, burn on DVD, copy to mobile device
fair pricing, 7,99$ for a movie and 0,99$ for a tv episode should be the maximum
custom downloads, reduced prices if you don’t download extras, additional audio
cover and booklet graphics are provided for free
no user tracking if a software is used, no logs, no abusive license agreement

The new poll is a reflection of an old one. Three months ago I asked which next-gen system you would buy and the leader at that time was the Playstation 3 by Sony followed by the Nintendo Wii and Microsofts Xbox 360.

With all the rumors around the PS3, the delay in Europe and the small amount of systems that will be available at launch date I want to see if some users changed their mind which system they will buy and compare those results to the former poll.

Tags: poll

Week 35 Poll Results and new Poll

Martin — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:33:35 +0000

Last weeks poll was asking wether you would purchase a Blue-Ray or a HD-DVD drive when available in your country. Poll results seem to reflect the current overall situation in the market. Blue-Ray has a small lead with 33% of all votes followed by HD-DVD with 29% and None with 29% as well. A smaller margin will be waiting for hybrid drives (11%) and 9% will buy both formats.

The small lead that Blue-Ray has in this poll could be explained with the fact that Sonys PS3 will ship with a build in Blue-Ray drive. Almost a third of all voters will not purchase either of the drives which has surely numous reasons: The most important reason to stay away from those next generation drives could be that they are DRM infested. Copy protection all over the place laying the burden on the user is probably not a good way to sell the product to the user in first place.

Second: No one needs a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD drive if his tv is not able to support the high definition, which means everyone who does not have a high def tv will not buy such a drive.

Let me know about your reasons please in the comments of this article.

This weeks poll is a direct results of the article I wrote about Apple iTunes movie prices which will be 14,99$ for new movies and 9,99$ for older ones. I think this is way overpriced and would like to ask everyone what they would be willing to pay for a dvd download on the internet.

How much would you be willing to pay for a DVD download of the Internet ? DVD download assumes it is a new complete DVD.

Tags: poll

Week 33 Poll Results and new Poll

Martin — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 13:08:29 +0000

I was asking you about your favorite video player in the last poll and most voters are actually using the program that I prefer as well called VLC, Video Lan Client. VLC managed to recieve 36% of all votes recieving as many votes as the mplayer, the windows media player and the bsplayer together. Realplayer and Quicktime only got 6% and 4% of the votes with others reaching 19%.

This weeks poll features a question that deals about the upcoming high def war between BlueRay and HD-DVD. Will you buy a BlueRay drive, or PS3 which has one built in, or do you want to buy a HD-DVD drive or the upcoming add on for Microsofts Xbox 360 ? Will you buy both or wait until a drive is available that is able to read both formats ? The last option of course is none, you will not buy such a drive because they are a) to expensive and b) don´t offer much added value to dvd.

I for myself will wait and see if there will be a winner before I even consider buying one of the expensive drives. After one becomes the standard or hybrid drives do I might buy one. Depends on the price though. Does not make sense to me to buy one without having a hd television at hand.

What is your opinion ?

Tags: poll

Poll Results and new Poll

Martin — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 08:10:27 +0000

I think it does not make sense to continue the current poll that is asking for your favorite search engine. Google is so dominant that the results would only change lightly if at all. The Google search engine recieved 94% of all votes, all others together recieved only 6% which is really low. It would be interesting to know why everyone is using Google and not MSN or Yahoo for example. Are Googles results better ? Is searching Google not that complicated ?

This time I will be asking you for your favorite media player. Which player are you mainly using on your system ? I think I have added the most important ones, let me know if I missed one and I will add it to the poll. Let the votes begin..

Tags: poll

Last Weeks Poll Results and New Poll

Martin — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 05:40:43 +0000

I was asking you last week about your main activity on the internet: Communicating, Creating Content, Downloading, Gaming, Research and Shopping were the options. 40% of the voters selected downloading which is a big percentage. Creating Content was second with 27% of all votes. Guys, let me know about your websites, I´d be interested to take a look and even write an article if I like them. The third place with 12% each was taken by Research and Communicating on the Internet. Gaming was selected by 8% of all voters and shopping by 0%, guess not many women visit my site..

The new poll is pretty straightforward: What is your favorite searchengine ? Is it ask.com, google, msn, yahoo or another one that I forgot to mention ? I thought I create a basic poll this time with only a few options and not one with hundreds of options. Hope you nevertheless enjoy this weeks poll. If you have suggestions for new polls let me know please.

Tags: poll

Death of Net Neutrality the clear number 1 fear

Martin — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:53:58 +0000

This poll results did not came unexpected: 41% of all voters stated that they feared the death of net neutrality the most, followed by trojans and virii (17%), spyware, hackers and nothing (10% each), phishing (5%), spam (4%) and finally Worms with 3%.

This is an overwhelming result and I thought I explain the net(work) neutrality concept for the ones who do not know what it is. Internet providers do one thing, they provide access to the internet and make sure that you receive all the data that you request. It does not matter if you surf to the website of a big company like eBay (amazon, Microsoft) or to my blog (hehe, or even smaller websites). All data get the same treatment, none is preferred over the other.

The providers (Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, and others) want to change the way the internet works. They want to decide which sites get a fast data transfer, which sites get a slow one and which get none. What this means is clear, the more you pay the faster you go. This also means that they cold favor their own services over the ones of their competition.

Take a look at this funny video of the daily show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YedWtX9tKE

Take a look at the save the internet website if you are living in the USA and want to help fight this.

The new poll wants to know about your main activity on the internet: Communicating (like icq, chats, forums), Content (creating websites, animations), downloading (Linux distributions, freeware), Gaming (online gaming, casinos, poker), Research (university, work, school) or Shopping.

Tags: Linux, microsoft, net-neutrality, providers, save the internet, usa

Poll Results and New Poll

Martin — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 05:29:11 +0000

I asked you in the last poll if you had the intention to buy a next-gen console system and if so which. 34% of all voters want to buy a Sony Playstation 3 despite the high price which is astounding to me. The Nintendo Wii is on the second place with 24% and the Microsoft Xbox 360 third making it to 17%. The rest has no intention to buy a console system. I will definatly stick with the Wii and see how the other systems perform. I don´t see much news about the Xbox 360 despite being on the market for a while.

What do you fear most on the internet is the next poll. Options include Hacker, Phishing, Spam, Spyware, Trojans and Virii, Worms or None. It is hackers for me. If I would not have internet sites I would not fear (malicous) hackers but the risk of losing all data on the websites is great. I´am well prepared for all other types mentioned in the poll. What about you ?

Tags: poll

What would you like to see on ghacks poll results

Martin — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 05:27:23 +0000

Okay the results are in and a new poll is online. I´d like to thank everyone who participated in the last poll and would like to comment shortly on the outcome. 27% of all voters would like to see more free stuff on ghacks, 23% more freeware and 21% Howtos. I guess those three already are a main focus on my site and I will continue to post articles covering those subjects. (don´t worry I will still post other articles as well.)

The next poll has just a few options and is called: What next-gen system will you buy. The choices are Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3 and None. If you intend to buy more than one select the one you will (or did) buy first. Oh, for those who can´t seem to find the poll, its located on the right column of my site.

Tags: poll

Who is going to win the World Cup Poll Results

Martin — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 07:03:19 +0000

We have seen lots of great matches so far that have been played at the Worldcup 2006 in Germany. Some teams like Argentina look in real great shape while others like Brasil play disappointingly. I would like to thank all voters for taking part in the vote. 597 visitors have voted and here are the results:

Brasil is the main favorit for 21% of the voters followed by Argentina with 16% and Germany with 14%. Italy made it to 12%, England to 8%, Netherlands to 7%, the Czechs to 5% and France got a disappointing 3% of all votes. I missed Spain by the way when I created the poll, I suppose lots of the 15% of the other category belong to Spain (and maybe Mexico). It will be great to find out if the vote is going to prove true or if we are going to witness a different outcome.

The next poll asks you what you would like to see on ghacks. The poll includes the following options:

Free Stuff: means articles like how to find mp3s with google
Firefox: Extensions, tips and tricks
Freeware: Freeware Recommendations
Fun: Funny Videos and Stories
Howtos: Tips and Tricks, online and offline
MySpace: Myspace Tips
Security: Security Related Topics

Tags: poll

gHacks technology news » Polls

Keep logged in users informed with motd

Related posts

About Secret Folders and Cleaning

Related posts

We all hate mondays

Related posts

So you want a forum, huh ?

Related posts

A poll is a poll is a poll

Related posts

Polls Polls Polls

Related posts

Week 37 Poll Results and New Poll

Related posts

Week 35 Poll Results and new Poll

Related posts

Week 33 Poll Results and new Poll

Related posts

Poll Results and new Poll

Related posts

Last Weeks Poll Results and New Poll

Related posts

Death of Net Neutrality the clear number 1 fear

Related posts

Poll Results and New Poll

Related posts

What would you like to see on ghacks poll results

Related posts

Who is going to win the World Cup Poll Results

Related posts