motd(5) mentions motd.tail which isn't avaialble anymore

[Florian Diesch]

Binary package hint: manpages

motd(5) says: "The contents of this file are regenerated upon every system boot based on the contents of /etc/motd.tail." This is not true anymore, as Ubuntu uses the update-motd framework. Any reference to motd.tail should be replaced with a reference to the update-motd framework or update-motd(5). The manpage for motd.tail should be removed.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: manpages 3.27-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri May 20 19:49:34 2011
Dependencies:

InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
SourcePackage: manpages
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-30 (20 days ago)

[Oli (oli)]

/etc/update-motd.d/99-footer will still pull in /etc/motd.tail if it exists.

I don't see any reason why this would change or why this requires documentation to be removed and/or changed.

[Florian Diesch (diesch)]

Alice want to change the motd on her server. The manpage motd(5) tells her that "the contents of this file are regenerated upon every system boot based on the contents of /etc/motd.tail" and links to motd.tail(5). That manpage tells her that " /etc/motd.tail is the file to edit permanent changes to the message of the day" and "The initiation script /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh prepends a line containing information about the system to /etc/motd.tail and stores the resulting file in /var/run/motd".

Alice can't find neither /etc/motd.tail nor etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh on her system but although the last reboot was 3 month ago she still gets up to date information about packages to be updated at login. Alice doesn't think the manpage is helpful in any way.

==================================================================

Bob want to change the motd on his server. The manpage motd(5) tells him that on Ubuntu the motd is dynamically created by the update-motd framework and links to update-motd(5). In update-motd(5) he reads that "Executable scripts in /etc/update-motd.d/* are executed by pam_motd(8) as the root user at each login" which is exactly what he wanted to know. Bob thinks the manpage is really helpful.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sir_Ragnarok (sir-ragnarok)]

I accidentally made a report about the same problem. It's marked as duplicate now.
I really hope someone who knows how motd works will rewrite the man page that applies to all users and that everyone can understand. For now I'm going to leave put my idea's about changing motd in the fridge until this is resolved.

[Stéphane Aulery (lkppo)]

Fixed in debian package manpages/3.74-1

See [1], [2] and [3]

[1] https://sources.debian.net/src/manpages/3.74-1/debian/patches/debian-changes/#L17
[2] https://sources.debian.net/src/manpages/3.74-1/debian/patches/debian-changes/#L240
[3] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=764844

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The new version is in Ubuntu now