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I used to have a script that would update /etc/issue with a few items such as IP address. However I setup a 16.04 server and the login screen does not update when updates are made to /etc/issue.

Is it possible to force the login console to refresh? I used to update the issue file every minute, but I no longer see the console update when new data is written to /etc/issue. I do see that if I hit enter, the new data will be there, but I am looking to update that automatically.

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    use something like watch -d -n 60 'tail /etc/issue' maybe (-d highlights differences if you like it, -n 60 for 60 seconds)
    – guiverc
    Dec 4, 2017 at 4:53
  • This would be great, but is there a way to have this run on startup to show on the login console? It's for a device that runs like an appliance and I want to have the watch output showing on every startup.
    – ebuntu
    Dec 4, 2017 at 5:13
  • add it to your .bash_profile (or another appropriate file depending on your use case; it will show up after login.... the file used can decide first login, each login etc..)
    – guiverc
    Dec 4, 2017 at 5:17
  • I unfortunately use this to give to clients where we send them an appliance with a small lcd monitor. I used to use this to output the ip and status info so they can tell if the box is online. No one will ever really login :(
    – ebuntu
    Dec 4, 2017 at 5:40
  • After hours of searching I found that the same thing can be forced by resetting the console via agetty: sudo systemctl restart getty@tty1
    – ebuntu
    Dec 4, 2017 at 7:49

1 Answer 1

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Solved with the following:

sudo systemctl restart getty@tty1

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