Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:23:49 -0400 From: Louis LeBlanc <leblanc+freebsd@keyslapper.org> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: motd question Message-ID: <20030826202349.GE70787@keyslapper.org> In-Reply-To: <20030826202002.GA243@webserver> References: <20030825163744.GA61150@keyslapper.org> <20030825180255.GB8753@webserver> <20030826202002.GA243@webserver>
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On 08/26/03 01:20 PM, Joshua Oreman sat at the `puter and typed: > On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 11:02:55AM -0700 or thereabouts, Joshua Oreman wrote: > > On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 12:37:44PM -0400 or thereabouts, Louis LeBlanc wrote: > > > Probably not possible, but I was wondering (and have for some > > > time, though I can't find any info on it either way) whether > > > /etc/motd is strictly a text in/text out file, or if there is a > > > way to get it to execute a command, the output of which is to be > > > included in the text output? > > > > You could make it a FIFO and put a Perl script or something at the > > other end, if you want dynamically-generated output. [ ... ] Be > > careful. > > Really! This approach can come back and bite you in the butt. > Basically, be absolutely sure the writer process is started during > bootup. Otherwise it'll hang indefinitely when logging in; you need > to drop to single-user to fix it. Yeah, I really just wanted to get the output of an alias, but it's not important enough to go through all that for. I just figured it would be a pretty cool - although quite geeky thing to have the real time printed out with each login: The alias is as follows: $ gtime Right now, the official U.S. time is: 16:20:43 Tuesday, August 26, 2003 and it's expansion is: $ alias gtime alias gtime='lynx -dump http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5 | head -5' Pretty interesting, but definitely not worth the hassle that would obviously be required. Thanks for the feedback everyone. Lou -- Louis LeBlanc leblanc@keyslapper.org Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :) http://www.keyslapper.org ԿԬ QOTD: "It's sort of a threat, you see. I've never been very good at them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective."
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