I have created/edited /etc/motd and /etc/issue. At first they did nothing at all, but I found /etc/login.defs and followed the hint there. So now it has the line MOTD_FILE /etc/motd for instance. But instead of displaying the file on running login as root, I get configuration error - unknown item 'MOTD_FILE' (notify administrator), and something similar if I attempt to use /etc/issue.
Looking at /bin/login with strings(1), I find a format string that would produce this output. Does anyone know how to correctly enable the message of the day and the greeting? -- Kevin O'Gorman, PhD