LINUX HOWTO: Adding SSH login messages

This will display a message to those who connect to you ssh server before logging on.

Steps:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
- Open this file in terminal. Then find the line "#Banner /etc/issue.net" and remove comment so that it reads "Banner /etc/issue.net". Then save.

sudo nano /etc/issue.net
- Secondly open this file and enter your message in this file, then save. ASCII looks good here.


sudo service ssh restart
- Restart ssh, and then the message will be displayed to users.


                  _==|
             _==|   )__)  |
               )_)  )___) ))
              )___) )____))_)
         _    )____)_____))__)\
          \---__|____/|___|___-\\---
  ^^^^^^^^^\   oo oo oo oo     /~~^^^^^^^
    ~^^^^ ~~~~^^~~~~^^~~^^~~~~~
      ~~^^      ~^^~     ~^~ ~^ ~^
           ~^~~        ~~~^^~


For ascii art like this check out:

http://www.sunnyspot.org/asciiart/gallery/index.html

http://www.network-science.de/ascii/