Summary User ignorance continues to be a thorn in the side of Linux system administrators trying to maintain a secure network. By Richard Sharpe he popularity enjoyed by Linux over the past 12 months has been good news for those of us who have been working with Linux for years. However, with more attention comes more risk. With hacking on the rise, concerns have also arisen about employees making inappropriate or illegal use of computers in the workplace. Information systems managers need to ensure that all users are informed of the conditions of their at-work computer use.
Systems managers can read the riot act to users before they log in.
Unix systems have been able to display pre-login messages for a long time, and Linux, as a Unix operating system, has the same abilities. Indeed, Linux's flexibility and ability to run X-based applications from shell scripts make it possible to provide your own custom solutions. In this article, I will discuss ways to inform users of their rights before they log in under a number of popular Linux distributions. I will include every way users can access the system. You can extend this technique to perform other actions before users can log in.