Mac OS X Message of the Day

What is the Message of the Day

Every Linux distribution is unique. One way that they are unique is the shell, and even the message of the day displayed when you login to terminal. Ubuntu 11.10 and higher uses landscape if you are on their server build, OS X shows you the last time you logged in. Some platforms will display a random motivation quote or even show you an ASCII art funny.

By nature, I am CLI driven. I don't mind using a graphical user interface, but I much prefer working through a terminal window. It is much quicker to type than to drag a mouse, and if you are familiar with scripting, I'm sure you agree.

I went ahead and created a PHP script for OS X Mountain Lion (but it does work on 10.6 and up) that will grab some key variables from the system_profiler command, and assign them to a variable.

Note: I use a mid-2012 Mac Book Pro with Retina, so when you look at the network interfaces, mine may not match yours.

What does my Message of the Day look like?

Here is a screenshot of what my new message of the day looks like:

I've broken it down into different categories:

• Networking
• System
• Battery

There are many options and variables available, such as hard drive space, NIC packets in/packets out, your current display brightness, and more.

Usage

Installation instructions and the source code is available on GitHub: mikemackintosh/HackintoshOSX-MOTD

Essentially, this is a PHP script, which executes the system_profiler command. This command will return output that looks similiar to the below:

Firewall:


    Firewall Settings:


      Mode: Limit incoming connections to specific services and applications
      Services:
          Remote Login (SSH): Allow all connections
          Screen Sharing: Allow all connections
      Applications:
          com.apple.imagent: Allow all connections
          com.parallels.desktop.dispatcher: Allow all connections
      Firewall Logging: Yes
      Stealth Mode: No


Graphics/Displays:


    Intel HD Graphics 4000:


      Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics 4000
      Type: GPU
      Bus: Built-In
      VRAM (Total): 512 MB
      Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
      Device ID: 0x0166
      Revision ID: 0x0009
      gMux Version: 3.2.19 [3.2.8]
      Displays:
        Color LCD:
          Display Type: LCD
          Resolution: 2880 X 1800
          Retina: Yes
          Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
          Main Display: Yes
          Mirror: Off
          Online: Yes
          Built-In: Yes
          Connection Type: DisplayPort


    NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M:


      Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
      Type: GPU
      Bus: PCIe
      PCIe Lane Width: x8
      VRAM (Total): 1024 MB
      Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
      Device ID: 0x0fd5
      Revision ID: 0x00a2
      ROM Revision: 3688
      gMux Version: 3.2.19 [3.2.8]


Hardware:


    Hardware Overview:


      Model Name: MacBook Pro
      Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
      Processor Name: Intel Core i7
      Processor Speed: 2.7 GHz
      Number of Processors: 1
      Total Number of Cores: 4
      L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
      L3 Cache: 6 MB
      Memory: 16 GB
      Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B03
      SMC Version (system): 2.3f35
      Serial Number (system): ----
      Hardware UUID: ----

The PHP script will the loop through the output and create a variable for each item. You can view a list of the supported variables on the GitHub page as well. It then creates an output similar to a bash script which is received via a pipe. It supports terminal colors for your pleasure.

Note: This script is not optimized, but does the job fairly quickly.