MeOwTD

securely send cute MOTDs to your (girl|enby|boy)friends' computers

what is this

MeOwTD is intended to be used with SSH command restriction to give someone limited access to your system MOTD file (usually /etc/motd)

it comes with an integrated CLI client for easy access :3

how to set up

if you're on NixOS, the flake contains both a NixOS module and a home-manager module that you can use

there's also an AUR package for Arch users :3

on non-NixOS systems, theres two ways you can set up MeOwTD receiver. you can either use the setup bash script or do it manually

automated

1. clone the repository
2. run

   bash setup.sh install                   # to build and install the binaries (if not installed any other way)
   bash setup.sh user                      # to set up the system user and permissions
   bash setup.sh add-key 'YOUR-SSH-PUBKEY' # to add an authorized key

3. enable your SSH server with public key authentication

manual

1. install the meowtd-receive binary to /usr/bin/meowtd-receive
2. create the mowtd system user and group

   useradd --system --create-home --shell /bin/sh --home-dir /var/lib/meowtd --gid meowtd meowtd

3. set /etc/motd permissions

   chown root:meowtd /etc/motd
   chmod 0664 /etc/motd

4. configure authorized keys

   mkdir -p /var/lib/meowtd/.ssh
   echo 'command="exec /usr/bin/meowtd-receive",restrict YOUR-SSH-PUBKEY' | tee -a /var/lib/meowtd/.ssh/authorized_keys
   chown -R meowtd:meowtd /var/lib/meowtd
   chmod 0700 /var/lib/meowtd/.ssh
   chmod 0600 /var/lib/meowtd/.ssh/authorized_keys

5. enable public key authentication in your SSH server
6. make sure your SSH server is running

receiver functionality can be configured with the following environment variables

name	description	default
MEOWTD_PATH	absolute path to the motd file	/etc/motd
MEOWTD_MAX_LENGTH	maximum allowed message length (0 for unlimited)	1024

yay! you can now use a configured MeOwTD client to connect and send a message :3

meowtd 'hewwo wowld :3'

you can also optionally make your shell print the MOTD every time it's launched

example for ZSH

# ~/.zshrc

if [[ -f /etc/motd ]] && [[ ! -o login ]]; then
  echo -ne '\e[2m'
  cat /etc/motd
  echo -ne '\e[0m'
fi

client configuration

MeOwTD is configured with a json file in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/meowtd/config.json usually (~/.config/meowtd/config.json)

example configuration

// comments are not allowed in actual json
// theyre added here for clarity
{
  "address": "your-ip-or-hostname",
  "port": 22,                                // default: 22
  "auth": {
    "username": "meowtd",                    // default: meowtd
    "key": {
      "private": "/path/to/your/ssh_key",
      "public": "/path/to/your/ssh_key.pub", // default: private with the .pub suffix
    }
  }
}

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_{Copyright 2026 june}