Comment 22 for bug 2015420

Now, to the actual functionality test on Bionic:

Bionic is an EOSS release, so messages about esm-infra will be present in MOTD by default.
After creating the marker file and triggering an update of MOTD, those messages disappear, but the updates count remains.

root@bionic-sut:~# apt policy update-notifier-common
update-notifier-common:
  Installed: 3.192.1.21
  Candidate: 3.192.1.21
  Version table:
 *** 3.192.1.21 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.192.1.19 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
     3.192 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
root@bionic-sut:~# run-parts /etc/update-motd.d/
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.5.0-21-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management: https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support: https://ubuntu.com/pro

  System information as of Fri Mar 15 22:51:31 UTC 2024

  System load: 1.72 Processes: 23
  Usage of /home: unknown Users logged in: 0
  Memory usage: 0% IP address for eth0: 10.46.74.128
  Swap usage: 0%

Expanded Security Maintenance for Infrastructure is not enabled.

11 updates can be applied immediately.
To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable

94 additional security updates can be applied with ESM Infra.
Learn more about enabling ESM Infra service for Ubuntu 18.04 at
https://ubuntu.com/18-04

New release '20.04.6 LTS' available.
Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.

root@bionic-sut:~# touch /var/lib/update-notifier/hide-esm-in-motd
root@bionic-sut:~# rm /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available
root@bionic-sut:~# apt update
Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease
Hit:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease
Hit:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease
Hit:5 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-proposed InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
11 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
root@bionic-sut:~# run-parts /etc/update-motd.d/
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.5.0-21-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management: https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support: https://ubuntu.com/pro

  System information as of Fri Mar 15 22:52:04 UTC 2024

  System load: 1.58 Processes: 23
  Usage of /home: unknown Users logged in: 0
  Memory usage: 0% IP address for eth0: 10.46.74.128
  Swap usage: 0%

11 updates can be applied immediately.
To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable

New release '20.04.6 LTS' available.
Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.

I am marking this bug verification-done on Bionic.