It is sometimes necessary to report to users that there are upcoming changes/issues/etc to a server before they login to a machine. To do this:

• SSH into machine as admin

ssh admin@1.2.3.4

• Change to root user

admin$ sudo su
# be sure to enter in the password for the admin user, not the root password

• Create a file called “issues” in the etc directory

admin$ touch /etc/issues
admin$ chmod 644 /etc/issues

• Allow the ssh daemon to access the banner
  1. edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  2. find the line that begins with

     #Banner

  3. remove the # comment marker
  4. save the file and exit
• Restart the SSH daemon

svcadm restart ssh

Upon login, the banner will be presented before the user has entered their password.