To edit or add a welcome message on CentOS (and this will probably work on other Linux distributions too), simply login to SSH first.

Once logged in, edit the following file /etc/motd with vi, nano or any other editor you prefer. I like nano, so I’ll go with that.

nano /etc/motd

Here, you can customize the message or, maybe, even simply remove it if it annoys you.

However, if you don’t find the welcome text in /etc/motd, you can simply search for it. If the welcome message contains ‘Hello there’, do the following to discover which file it is in.

cd /etc && grep "hello there" *

This command will first change the directory to /etc and then perform a search for the query you enter. My welcome message was in /etc/issue.

Now logout and login again to see your artwork! I’m sure proud of mine.

logout

SSH login text