change esx console text

[Gui]

I want to change the esx console text to have a security warning, owner information etc

according to this post http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=354868&#354868 i am not able to.

is this going to be available in the future? anyone knows.

[MR-T]

You've always got the MOTD feature.

[admin]

Did Oliver not answer the question? What more are you looking for?

[shads]

you can add your messages in the file

/etc/motd file , so that you vil get the messages displayed in the console.

thanks,

shads.

[Gui]

Brian, this was a message of a year ago. quite a few things are changed. so i wanted to know if it is possible now. and if not maybe in the future.

[Gui]

when does the motd feature work? do i need to reboot the machine? or restart a service?

[_the_dude_]

The /etc/motd file is usually shown after you have succesfully logged in. After editing the change is effective immediately.

What I read from your question you want to change the text that comes on screen before you login (right?). I'm not sure under ESX but under linux this is nowadays done in /etc/issue

That change should also be effective immediately. When the logon screen is refreshed you can see the change. Try hitting enter a few times on the (old) logon prompt. After some time (not sure how long) the screen will refresh and read the /etc/issue again.

Make sure thath the /etc/rc.local script is not overwriting the /etc/issue after reboot...

[_the_dude_]

I've been doing some digging and i've seen /etc/issue being mentioned in combination with ESX in a lot of places on the web, so it should work. People are using that file to check what version of esx is running on their system.

If you do not want to wait for the timeout mentioned above, then you can also log in once and log out. The screen will be refreshed and the (new) /etc/issue will be displayed.

[Gui]

dude, i mean the screen that is there when you press alt-f11 or alt-f1 on the console.

it is the vmwar esx splash screen.

the issue file helps asswel

[Schorschi]

edit the /etc/issue

edit the /etc/issue.net

edit the /etc/banner (you enable this in the ssh_config

edit the /etc/motd

edit the /etc/issue.emergency, file as well if it exists... that is ALT-F6 I believe

We asked VMware to change the ALT-F11 screen to allow banner like editing VMKStatus on ESX 2.5.x... They said.... in a word... NO.

This really ticked of our security department... because on the console and via putty you ONLY get the warning after you enter the id! But such is life. Our company wanted ESX 3.x so guess WHO won? We did the best we can.

[Gui]

I think this will be a wish. and asking vmware if it is possible would be good.

for now we just have to live with what we have.

thanks for the info

[mattpound]

I played with doing something where I displayed something like vmkstatus.pl on one of the free consoles and then used chvt at startup to make sure that was displayed as default.

[Michelle_Laveri]

I'm interested in this topic.. I've manage to impleament /etc/issue and others. But not actually change the "splash" screen of ESX server.

The official line from reading this post is VMware say no... BUT, didn't anyone here find away of doing despite it not being offical supported?

Regards

Mike

[andy_mcdougall]

Hi all,

The /etc/issue file is used by a lot of third party apps to check the OS releasse, if you chnage the /etc/issue you might encounter errors later on. Chnage the virtual consoles to use the /etc/issue.net file instead by editing the /etc/inittab and inserting the -f /etc/issue.net after each mingetty command .

Example

1. Run gettys in standard runlevels

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty -f /etc/issue.net tty1

2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty -f /etc/issue.net tty2

3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty -f /etc/issue.net tty3

4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty -f /etc/issue.net tty4

5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty -f /etc/issue.net tty5

1. Put an emergency console up in standard runlevels

6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty -f /etc/issue.net -l /bin/login.emergency tty6

Regards

Andy