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From: DHASKIN@CLARKU.BITNET (Denis W. Haskin, Manager, Technical Services)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: SYS$ANNOUNCE Logical Name Bug Or Feature
Message-ID: <8707240628.AA12401@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 24-Jul-87 00:55:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8707240628.AA12401
Posted: Fri Jul 24 00:55:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 12:20:22 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 44

> From:         "Mark H. Granoff" <mhg@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
> Comments: To: "Daniel M. Zirin" <zar@XHMEIA.Caltech.Edu>
> In-Reply-To:  Your message of Tue,
>               21 Jul 87 11:04:11 -0700. <870721110411.016@XHMEIA.Caltech.Edu>
>
> >I found out today that while you can make the logical name SYS$ANNOUNCE
> >point to a string as big as 255 characters, once that string exceeds
> >128 characters, the LOGINOUT system no longer uses it (you end up with
> >no announcement prior to username: prompt). This is STUPID! I'm generating
> >a rather long SYS$ANNOUNCE string with embedded <CR>s and <LF>s to give
> >some useful info at login and DEC contradicts itself. Geez.
>
> That's why there's such a thing as 'SYS$MANAGER:WELCOME.TXT' or
> whatever you might call it.  After a person logs in, and is executing
> (not by choice) SYLOGIN.COM, there can be a TYPE command to display a
> text file with 'useful info at login.'

Close; you don't need to have the SYSLOGIN.COM do a TYPE; establish
SYS$ANNOUNCE as a system logical name that translates to @<filename>, and
the contents of <filename> will be displayed before the user logs in.  For
example, here SYS$ANNOUNCE is

   "SYS$ANNOUNCE" = "@SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT" (LNM$SYSTEM_TABLE)

and SYS$MANAGER:ANNOUNCE.TXT is

                  Welcome to node Kukla at Clark University
                     a VAX 11/750 running VMS version 4.5

(remember that if you're on a cluster the ANNOUNCE.TXT files should be in
SYS$SPECIFIC:[SYSMGR], not SYS$COMMON).

Similarly, SYS$WELCOME may be used for the message-of-the-day text.

Have fun...


% Denis W. Haskin                             Manager, Technical Services %
% ----------------------------------------------------------------------- %
% DHASKIN@CLARKU.BITNET   Office of Information Systems     (617)793-7193 %
% Clark University               950 Main Street      Worcester MA  01610 %
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%                       "Revenge is best served cold."                    %
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