How to update MOTD regularly? Every week there's a new work log/to-do list at work. There's a `todo` script which can be used to extract my own to-do items from that. Currently this is called in `~/.bash_aliases_local`, which is sourced from `~/.bash_aliases`. Rather than parsing the log every time I start another shell, I'd like to use the standard MOTD (message of the day) functionality. This would involve updating a static file with the to-do list on a weekly basis: @weekly update-motd The resulting static text file should be printed every time I start an interactive Bash shell. What's the standard way to do this?

If you want to have the message displayed every time you open up a new terminal (under an X session), then `motd` is not the right place. It is executed by the `login` program - this happens when you log in on a real `tty` (or via `ssh` for example).

For terminal sessions, I believe the only universal way is to run `cat somefile` at the end of your shell's startup file: either personal (i.e. `~/.bashrc` `~/.zshrc` etc.) or global (under `/etc` \- see your shell's manpage for details). Generally, I'm afraid there isn't a "standard" way of doing this in case of terminal emulator sessions.