The Command Line Billboards
When you log into an Ubuntu Server via SSH, you are greeted by the “Message of the Day” (MOTD). Traditionally, this text displayed useful system information like the OS version, kernel version, and a welcome message. However, modern Ubuntu installations include a script called motd-news, which reaches out to Canonical’s servers to fetch and display promotional text.
This means your command line login screen will often feature advertisements for Canonical’s managed Kubernetes services, Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, or links to tech blogs. For sysadmins who want a clean, professional, and strictly informational login prompt—and who want to prevent their servers from making unnecessary outbound HTTP requests to fetch ads—this feature is highly undesirable. You can easily disable it.
How to Disable MOTD News Adverts
You can stop Ubuntu from fetching these promotional messages by editing the MOTD configuration file.
- Open your Ubuntu Terminal (or connect via SSH).
- Open the Ubuntu default configuration file in the nano text editor using sudo:
sudo nano /etc/default/motd-news- Look for the line that says:
ENABLED=1- Change the
1to a0so it looks like this:
ENABLED=0- Save the file and exit the editor (in nano, press
Ctrl + O,Enter, thenCtrl + X). - To immediately clear out any cached news that might still show up on your next login, run the following command to empty the cache file:
sudo rm /var/cache/motd-newsThe next time you log into your Ubuntu server via SSH, you will only see the standard system statistics and information, completely free of Canonical’s promotional text.