From owner-freebsd-questions Thu May 30 14:36:35 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA29072 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 30 May 1996 14:36:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from mpp@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA29042; Thu, 30 May 1996 14:36:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Mike Pritchard Message-Id: <199605302136.OAA29042@freefall.freebsd.org> Subject: Re: long motd files - screen pause? To: richardc@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Veggy Vinny) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 14:36:29 -0700 (PDT) Cc: kelly@fsl.noaa.gov, terry@lambert.org, questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Veggy Vinny" at May 30, 96 01:10:54 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Veggy Vinny wrote: > > > > On Thu, 30 May 1996, Mike Pritchard wrote: > > > Sean Kelly wrote: > > > > > > >>>>> "Veggy" == Veggy Vinny writes: > > > > > > Veggy> Hmmm, okay but how do some machines make the motd > > > Veggy> pause even before it knows the termcap? > > > > > > By ``cheating'' with the default user setup, perhaps. > > > > If all you want is to have the thing paged, just run > > it through more. If the term type is undefined, more > > will simply pause after 24 lines, assuming that it is > > a simple "dumb" terminal. You can't screw up too > > much by assuming that (hard copy terminal maybe, but > > the right options to more might even eliminate that). > > If you get lucky, and the terminal type has been supplied > > by rlogin or whatever, you are even better off. > > How do you get the motd to be displayed through more like what > needs to be done? You would need to modify the login program to exec to fork and exec more on /etc/motd. However, I like the other alternatives mentioned before better. Mostly because having a /etc/motd file that is automatically paged at login could possibly cause problems for automated login scripts. My ISP's PPP connection method used to require that you fully login first and then run a command to establish the PPP connection. It would have been a pain if I had to worry about sending an extra c/r or two to make the motd display go away when using my automated PPP scripts. Plus very long motds can cause problems if the user uses something like "qterm" in their .login, since the output might not drain in time, and qterm will timeout and not set the terminal type correctly. Try using "msgs" or something else instead of overly long motds, as was suggested by someone else. You can always put "msgs -q" in /etc/csh.cshrc and /etc/profile to notify users that there are new messages available. If the message is really that important, a few line description in /etc/motd pointing them at the "msgs" message should suffice. -- Mike Pritchard mpp@FreeBSD.org "Go that way. Really fast. If something gets in your way, turn"