Comment 5 for bug 1956115

You did respond to the questions so this should not have expired out. However, your answers beget more questions so I will be setting this back to incomplete.

> /etc/default/motd-news as outlined in the link
> "/etc/default/motd-news has an ENABLED=1 setting that if set to 0 will turn off this functionality."

> The file no longer exists by default. This would be required to change the ENABLED variable from 1 to 0.

The file did exist by default in the focal release, but the changes in LP: #1888575 were SRUed such that this file also does not exist on an up-to-date Desktop system of a previous Ubuntu release - only on an Ubuntu Server system.

> The directions or pulled location are wrong. ubuntu-advantage-tools requires MOTD which
> itself it does not control, both of which are not removable as they are dependencies of
> ubuntu-desktop-minimal. Subsequently there are forced hooks for MOTD and Apt for
> something most desktop users aren't using with the inability to opt out in the way it is listed.

So your objection is in the context of Ubuntu Desktop, not Server?

> The reason why this matters is a disabled service through systemd will then be enabled. By
> doing so it procs the running of said MOTD service which does reach out to the internet.
> The only certain option is to mask the services and timers entirely.

I do not understand what this refers to, because the /lib/systemd/system/motd-news.service service calls /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news, which does nothing if the file /etc/default/motd-news does not exist. This is the case on Desktop systems. So can you clarify what it is that is running that you think should not be?