UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I find this quite odd

On my Solaris 9 box, when I telnet (or SSH) into the server, /etc/motd just contains the single line
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.9 Generic January 2003

Now, if your /etc/motd contains a similar single line pertinent to your version of Solaris, then one of the startup scripts must be in some way, shape, or form, executing either directly or by way of another script, something along the lines of

Code:

echo "YO!"
date

You could grep within your home directory for "YO!".

Is your home directory mounted over NFS?

Cheers
ZB

Yeah I tried to grep for "YO!" but no luck.
Not sure about this one...

I tried to insert my own message into /etc/motd and the message showed up just above the "YO!"
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic Patch October 2001
TEST
YO!
Mon Nov 15 17:56:47 EST 2004

So how's date generated, may be it's in there?

Have a look at /etc/vfstab - is there a line for /export/home that says "nfs" in the fourth column (this is a "rough" guide - your vfstab will probably differ)?

My reasoning here is that if your home directory is mounted via NFS, and an erroneous script is being executed, this would explain why the behaviour is the same for each server you log into.

Cheers
ZB

Here is what I would do, something like:

Code:

 find / -exec grep "YO!" {} \;

You might want to add a flag to find to print the file where the match is found.

I have been looking at the login sequence on a Sun box. The first line (Last login) is printed by the login program itself. The second line should be the contents of /etc/motd and is printed by code in /etc/profile. This means that the lines are being printed by your own startup scripts.


mv .profile .profile.save

and login again. Do you still see the message? If so, do
echo $ENV
and tell us what that command says.

If moving .profile out of the way suppressed the message, it is in there somewhere. Put .profile back and edit it. Add a line:
echo at point one
as the very first line. And a line:
echo at point two
as the very last line. Does the message appear bewteen the two new echos? If so, move then until you zero in on the offending line.

yup. what i was going to suggest. just search your whole disk for that string.