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 XMOTD(8)                      X11 Release 6.3                      XMOTD(8)
                                 Sep 12 1997



 NAME
      xmotd - message-of-the-day browser for X (and dumb terminals, VT100,
      etc.)


 SYNOPSIS
      xmotd [X-toolkit options] [-always] [-bitmaplogo bitmap-filename] [-
      browser web-browser] [-help] [-stampfile stamp-filename] [-
      showfilename] [-usedomains] [-wakeup sleep-period] [-warnfile warning-
      filename [-paranoid]] [-popdown timeout] motd-filename [motd-filename2
      ... ]

      or

      xmotd xmotd-options motd-directoryname

      or (in text-mode)

      xmotd [-stampfile stamp-filename] [-wakeup sleep-period] motd-filename
      [motd-filename2 ...]


 DESCRIPTION
      xmotd is a message-of-the-day browser for X11 and dumb terminals.
      Under X11, it displays a customizable bitmap in the top-left corner.
      It provides for up to 3 lines of title-text (the length of the text
      depends on the size of the font chosen). It has a "Dismiss" button
      below the bitmap and a read-only text-widget that displays the message
      (or messages) of the day. The date of the message (and optionally, the
      filename) is displayed just above the text.


      xmotd can be configured to run in various modes: to always pop-up
      after login or to pop-up only when the motd changes; to pop-down
      automatically (without user-intervention) after a specified delay; to
      run in the background and periodically check if the motd has changed
      and display it. By default, xmotd displays a message only if the
      file(s) was updated since the last time the user read it.

      If xmotd has to display more than one file, the user is required to
      press the "Next Message" button to view subsequent messages; the text
      of the button changes to "Dismiss" when the last message is displayed.

      xmotd defaults to text-only mode (output to stdout) when it cannot
      connect to an X display. This mode is useful for running xmotd from
      user's ~/.login file in cases where they can also login via dialup.

      xmotd can display messages marked-up with HTML and xpm colour pixmap
      logos. Support for these must be configured at compile-time.





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                                 Sep 12 1997



 OPERATION
      xmotd is usually run from the system Xsession file via xdm(1) and/or
      from the user's ~/.login file. At sites where xdm is not used, xmotd
      may be run from the user's ~/.xinitrc where a (possibly) malicious
      user may intentionally or accidently remove the xmotd invocation from
      the file.

      When xmotd first runs, it creates a timestamp file (by default called
      .xmotd) in the user's home-directory. On subsequent invocations, xmotd
      uses the date of this file to decide whether or not the message-of-
      the-day (motd) files have been updated. If the date of the motd file
      is later than the date on the ~/.xmotd file, then xmotd will display
      the motd file; otherwise it will silently exit (if there are no more
      files to be displayed and if -wakeup was not used). When invoked with
      -wakeup, xmotd daemonizes itself and goes to sleep for the specified
      sleep-period, periodically waking-up to see if the motds have changed
      and then displaying them.

      In cases where user's home-directories are shared (NFS mounted) across
      various (unique) domains, xmotd supports domain-name based time-
      stamping by creating timestamps with the appropriate domain-names
      appended and checks the dates of these timestamps with the date of the
      message-of-the-day file(s).

      By default, xmotd pops-down only when the "Dismiss" button is clicked;
      the rest of the login-procedure then continues. This interactive
      behaviour can be overriden so xmotd will pop-down without user
      intervention, after a specified timeout period.


 OPTIONS
      All the standard X options are valid. In addition, the following
      options, which may also be set as resources in the app-defaults file
      (See RESOURCES), are available:


      -always  overrides xmotd's "smart" behavior; the ~/.xmotd time-stamp
              is ignored and the message (or messages) is always displayed.
              Zero-length (empty) files are displayed when this option is
              specified.


      -bitmaplogo bitmap-filename

              specifies that the bitmap bitmap-filename is to be displayed
              in place of the default bitmap, the "X" logo.  Ideally, the
              specified bitmap should have a width and height of 100 pixels.
              If xpm support is compiled-in, xpm colour pixmaps may be
              substituted instead. See NOTES for additional details.





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      -browser web-browser

              specifies the path and filename of a browser to be used when
              an URL is clicked (HTML version only). The default is
              "/usr/local/bin/netscape". See NOTES for additional details.


      -help    prints detailed command-line usage.


      -paranoid

              (used with -warnfile) displays the warning message
              unconditionally at every login (even when there are no
              messages to be displayed).


      -popdown timeout

              indicates that xmotd should exit/pop-down without user
              intervention, timeout seconds after being invoked. The user
              can dismiss xmotd at any time before the timeout, by clicking
              on the "Dismiss" button. This option is only valid at the
              initial login; it is ignored on subsequent pop-ups when xmotd
              is invoked with -wakeup.


      -showfilename

              displays the filename (as it appears on the command-line), of
              the file currently being viewed, alongside the date.


      -stampfile stamp-filename

              overrides the default timestamp filename, ~/.xmotd and uses
              stamp-filename instead.



      -usedomains

              uses local domain-name based time-stamping in cases where
              user's home-directories are shared (NFS mounted) across
              various domains.  Time-stamps are created (and checked) with
              appropriate domain-names appended.


      -warnfile warning-filename

              specifies a file containing a standard message used to warn



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                                 Sep 12 1997



              users of the consequences of deviance and sundry unlawful
              things they should not even think of doing on your network;
              your network's rules of use, information about disk quotas,
              modem charges and printer accounting fees (used with -paranoid
              option).


      -wakeup sleep-period

              causes xmotd to run in the background and wakeup periodically
              every sleep-period hours to check whether the message(s) on
              the command-line have been modified and therefore need to be
              (re-)displayed. The sleep period is specified as a floating
              point number where the fractional portion indicates the number
              of minutes. For example, a sleep-period of 0.25 indicates 15
              minutes (one quarter of an hour) and a sleep-period of 1.5
              indicates one and one-half hours; the minimum (enforced)
              sleep-period is 1 minute. The -wakeup option is useful at
              sites where users have their own workstations never log-out.
              See NOTES for additional details.


      motd-filename [motd-filename2 ... ]

              one or more files to be displayed may be specified. The
              file(s) contain the text of the message(s) of the day. If HTML
              support is compiled-in the motd files should be marked-up with
              HTML.


      motd-directoryname

              Instead of supplying one or more files on the command-line,
              xmotd may be supplied a directory-name containing file(s) to
              be displayed. xmotd will scan the directory and display all
              the files contained therein, that need to be displayed. This
              feature is useful when used with the -wakeup option; upon
              waking-up, xmotd will re-scan the directory for any files
              (including new files that have been subsequently added) that
              need to be displayed.


 EXAMPLES
      Give xmotd a geometry option to tell it to pop-up at a location other
      than 0,0 and read-in the message-of-the-day from the file
      /usr/local/motd:

         xmotd -geometry +20+20 /usr/local/motd
      Use a bigger window (900x600) and automatically position it (at top-
      left corner at 20,20), always pop-up xmotd displaying the contents of
      /usr/local/motd, ignoring the user's ~/.xmotd timestamp-file and pop-



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 XMOTD(8)                      X11 Release 6.3                      XMOTD(8)
                                 Sep 12 1997



      down after 20 seconds:

         xmotd -geom 900x600+20+20 -always -popdown 20 /usr/local/motd

      Use a custom bitmap as the logo (the bitmap is in the file
      /usr/local/xmotd.bm):

         xmotd -geom +5+5 -bitmaplogo /usr/local/xmotd.bm /usr/local/motd

      In the following example, all the files in /usr/local/messages/ will
      be checked for modification times greater than the time-stamp and only
      those files will be displayed and every eight and a half hours, xmotd
      will check if any files have changed (or new ones added) and display
      them if necessary:

         xmotd -geom +5+5 -wakeup 8.5 /usr/local/messages/

      To display a warning-message every time the user logs-in (even when no
      messages need to be displayed), and to display the filenames of the
      files being viewed, use:

         xmotd -geom +5+5 -warnfile /usr/local/WARNING -paranoid \
            -showfilename /usr/local/motds/

      X resources may be changed from the command-line using the -xrm
      option. This example (typed as a single line) illustrates how xmotd
      can be customized exclusively from the command-line:


          /usr/X11/bin/xmotd -always \
              -xrm "*title.label: Top 10 Disk Hogs As of midnight " \
              -xrm "*title.foreground: yellow" \
              -xrm "*form.background: red" \
              -xrm "*title.background: red" \
              -xrm "*logo.background: pink" \
              -xrm "*text*font: -adobe-times-bold-*-normal-*-*-180-*" \
              -geometry 500x650-1-1 \
              -bitmaplogo /usr/common/choke.xbm
              -popdown 10 \
              /usr/common/accounting/top &



 RESOURCES
      The application class-name is XMotd.

      The resource: XMotd*Always (set to either True or False) is equivalent
      to the -always command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*Popdown (set to the number of seconds) is
      equivalent to the -popdown command-line option.



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 XMOTD(8)                      X11 Release 6.3                      XMOTD(8)
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      The resource: XMotd*Browser (set to the path and filename of the
      browser to be used when users click on an URL (HTML version only)) is
      equivalent to the -browser command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*BitmapLogo (set to the path and filename of the
      bitmap/pixmap-file) is equivalent to the -bitmaplogo command-line
      option.

      The resource: XMotd*UseDomains (set to True/False) is equivalent to
      the -usedomains command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*ShowFilename ((set to True/False) is equivalent to
      the -showfilename command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*Paranoid ((set to True/False) is equivalent to the
      -paranoid command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*Warnfile (set to the path and filename of the
      warning-file) is equivalent to the -warnfile command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*Wakeup (set to an floating-point number
      representing hours) is equivalent to the -wakeup command-line option.

      The resource: XMotd*title.label (set to a possibly multi-line string)
      may be used to customize the title).

      By default, the title is the single line:"Message Of The Day\n\n\n"
      (the 2-character sequence, "\n", indicates a carriage-return).

      For example, if you want a 2 line title that reads:

               This is the
            Message of the Day

      the resource can be specified as:

             *title.label: \       This is the\nMessage of the Day\n\n

      Note that the first backslash quotes the leading spaces that indent
      the words, "This is the".



 WIDGET HIERARCHY
      The widget hierarchy is as follows (Class-name & object-name):
      XMotd xmotd
              Form form
                  Label logo
                  Label title
                  Label hline
                  Label info



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 XMOTD(8)                      X11 Release 6.3                      XMOTD(8)
                                 Sep 12 1997



                  Command quit
                  Text text     OR       Html text


 FILES
      $ProjectRoot/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession

      (where $ProjectRoot is /usr/X11R6 or, perhaps /usr/X11).

      $HOME/.xmotd (default stamp-file)

      $HOME/.login


 SEE ALSO
      X(1), xdm(1), login(1), xv(l), gimp(l), xpaint(l), cat(1), less(l)


 NOTES
      The -always option is considered fascist; it is provided merely for
      completeness and for testing purposes.

      If xpm support is compiled-in, xmotd -help will print the words
      "bitmap/pixmap" for the -bitmaplogo description  instead of just
      "bitmap".

      Under dumb-terminal mode, all command-line options are ignored with
      the exception of -stampfile and -wakeup; the -always option is
      equivalent to cat'ing the motd from the ~/.login file; and -popdown is
      not really relevant. Both -warnfile and -paranoid may be simulated
      with appropriate cat(1) and more(1) commands.

      xmotd processes invoked with -wakeup will continue sleeping, "S" in
      the ps(1) status field, after the user has logged-out until the sleep
      timeout expires. Only when xmotd wakes-up, will it will detect that
      the user has logged-out and exit. xmotd's logout-detection routine
      relies on the xdm(1) support scripts GiveConsole and TakeConsole
      setting the correct permissions and ownership on /dev/console. When
      xmotd wakes-up, it attempts to open(2) /dev/console for reading; if
      this open fails, it indicates that the user has logged out because
      TakeConsole has changed ownership of the console.

      The -browser option was originally called -netscape; it was renamed to
      be more generic. When initially run, the browser is invoked as:

          "/usr/local/bin/netscape %s"


      where %s is replaced by the selected URL. Subsequent URLs will be
      displayed in the already running browser using the syntax:




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 XMOTD(8)                      X11 Release 6.3                      XMOTD(8)
                                 Sep 12 1997



          "/usr/local/bin/netscape -remote openURL(%s)"


      You may substitute a browser of your choice for netscape, if it
      supports this syntax.


 BUGS
      At least one.

      Also, there are no provisions for displaying embedded images in the
      HTML version of xmotd.


 QUOTES
                      and our lives are forever changed
                            we will never be the same
                      the more you change the less you feel

                     --Tonight, tonight,
                     "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness"
                     Billy Corgan, The Smashing Pumpkins


                   Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.
                (All things change, and we change with them).

                     --Matthias Borbonius:
                     Deliciae Poetarum Germanorum, i. 685


                       To everything there is a season,
                  And a time to every purpose under heaven.

                     --Ecclesiastes 3:1-4



 AUTHORS
      Luis Fernandes <elf@ee.ryerson.ca> is the primary author and
      maintainer.

      Richard Deal <rdeal@atl.lmco.com> contributed the directory-scanning
      code.

      Stuart A. Harvey <sharvey@primenet.com> contributed the URL support
      code for the HTML version.

      David M. Ronis <ronis@onsager.chem.mcgill.ca> contributed code to
      support xpm logos.




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 XMOTD(8)                      X11 Release 6.3                      XMOTD(8)
                                 Sep 12 1997



 COPYRIGHT
      Copyright 1993 (as xbanner, no public release) 1994-97, Luis A.
      Fernandes

      Permission to use, copy, hack, and distribute this software and its
      documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
      provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
      both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
      supporting documentation.

      This application is presented as is without any implied or written
      warranty.

      This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
      it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
      the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
      your option) any later version.

      This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
      WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      General Public License for more details.

      You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
      along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
      Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

      The HTML widget Copyright 1993, Board of Trustees of the University of
      Illinois. See the file libhtmlw/HTML.c for the complete text of the
      NCSA copyright.
























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