Comment 1 for bug 1893716

Hello Thomas,

Thanks for reporting this and making Ubuntu better.

about your statement on lsb-release, in 00-header:

""""
[ -r /etc/lsb-release ] && . /etc/lsb-release

if [ -z "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" ] && [ -x /usr/bin/lsb_release ]; then
        # Fall back to using the very slow lsb_release utility
        DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(lsb_release -s -d)
fi

# cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS"
""""

the slowpath is only executed if the DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION variable is not set, at least in my tests.

In regards to your statement:

"""
The content of /etc/update-motd.d/* really, really, really shouldn't be executed if the session in question is not interactive, as it provides no value at all. Unfortunately, to disable it for these non-interactive sessions, we also have to disable it for the interactive ones as well where it has some value (though not enough to make spiking the load on this server through the roof an acceptable tradeoff).
"""

Considering there IS a way of disabling the dynamic motd contents currently by commenting only the line containing the /run/motd.dynamic wording:

# Print the message of the day upon successful login.
# This includes a dynamically generated part from /run/motd.dynamic
# and a static (admin-editable) part from /etc/motd.
# session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic
session optional pam_motd.so noupdate

I'm flagging this bug as a whishlist priority.