Custom MOTD on Raspberry Pi OS

This guide will help you set your custom MOTD (Message of the Day) when login with SSH in terminal.

Step #1 – Remove the default MOTD:

sudo rm /etc/motd

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Step #2 – Edit new motd file:

username=$(whoami) && sudo nano "/home/$username/.bash_profile"

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Step #3 – Copy/paste script code:

# deepmotd v1.1 - 01.12.2023
# deepmotd v1.2 - 17.12.2025

clear

let upSeconds="$(/usr/bin/cut -d. -f1 /proc/uptime)"
let secs=$((${upSeconds}%60))
let mins=$((${upSeconds}/60%60))
let hours=$((${upSeconds}/3600%24))
let days=$((${upSeconds}/86400))

# set $temp
temp=$(($(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp) / 1000))

# set color to temp
if [ $temp -lt 60 ]; then
  color=$(tput setaf 2)  # Green
elif [ $temp -lt 70 ]; then
  color=$(tput setaf 3)  # Yellow
else
  color=$(tput setaf 1)  # Red
fi

# set $username
username=$(whoami)

# set $ufwports
if sudo ufw status &>/dev/null; then
    ufwports=$(sudo ufw status \
        | grep -oE "[0-9]+/[a-z]+" \
        | sed 's|/[a-z]\+||' \
        | sort -n | uniq | tr '\n' ' ')
    [ -z "$ufwports" ] && ufwports="N/A"
else
    ufwports="Disabled"
fi

# set $passwdusers
passwdusers=$(awk -F: '$3 >= 1000 && $3 < 65534 {printf "%s ", $1}' /etc/passwd)

# set $public_ipv4
public_ipv4=$(curl -s4 http://icanhazip.com/)

# set $public_ipv6
public_ipv6=$(curl -s6 http://icanhazip.com/)
[ -z "$public_ipv6" ] && public_ipv6="N/A"

# uptime
UPTIME=`printf "%d days, %02dh %02dm %02ds" "$days" "$hours" "$mins" "$secs"`

# get the load averages
read one five fifteen rest < /proc/loadavg

# Display memory usage in GB with two decimal places
memory_used=$(free -m | awk '/Mem/ {printf "%.2f", $3/1024}')
memory_total=$(awk '/MemTotal/ {printf "%.2f", $2/1024/1024}' /proc/meminfo)

clear

echo "$(tput setaf 3)`date +"%A, %e %B %Y, %T"`

$(tput sgr0)  Model..............: $(tr -d '\0' < /proc/device-tree/model)
$(tput sgr0)  OS.................: `grep 'PRETTY_NAME' /etc/os-release | cut -d '"' -f 2`
$(tput sgr0)  Kernel.............: `uname -srm`
$(tput sgr0)  Uptime.............: ${UPTIME}
$(tput sgr0)  Running Processes..: `ps ax | wc -l | tr -d " "`
$(tput sgr0)  Load Averages......: ${one} (1min), ${five} (5mins), ${fifteen} (15mins)
$(tput sgr0)  CPU Temperature....: $color$temp C
$(tput sgr0)  Memory.............: ${memory_used} GB (used) of ${memory_total} GB (total)
$(tput sgr0)  Storage............: `df -h -x tmpfs -x vfat -x devtmpfs | awk 'NR==2 {print $5 " (" $3 " of " $2 ") used on " $1 }'`
$(tput sgr0)  IPv4 LAN...........: `hostname -I | /usr/bin/cut -d " " -f 1`
$(tput sgr0)  IPv4 WAN...........: $public_ipv4  
$(tput sgr0)  IPv6 LAN...........: `ifconfig eth0 | grep "inet6" | awk 'NR==1 {print $2}'`
$(tput sgr0)  IPv6 WAN...........: $public_ipv6
$(tput sgr0)  MAC Address........: $(ifconfig eth0 | awk '/ether/ {print toupper($2)}')
$(tput sgr0)  Firewall (UFW).....: $ufwports
$(tput sgr0)  User Accounts......: $passwdusers
$(tput sgr0)"

Now save using CTRL+O, and exit nano text editor with CTRL+X

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Step #4 – Restart SSHD service:

sudo systemctl restart sshd

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Update to new version:

If you have created motd file already and need to clear the file for updated code.

Steps:

• Login SSH
• Run command:
  username=$(whoami) && sudo truncate -s 0 /home/$username/.bash_profile && sudo nano "/home/$username/.bash_profile"
• Copy and past updated code above
• CTRL+ O (save)
• CTRL+X (exit)

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https://dev.to/bearlike/raspberry-pi-awesome-custom-motd-bpd