awesome-ssh-login-screen

A fastfetch / btop-style SSH login screen for Linux servers — your distro's logo, system info, live CPU/RAM/network, Docker stacks and security status, shown every time you SSH in.

Works on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL / Rocky / Alma / Oracle, Amazon Linux, Arch, openSUSE, Alpine and ~200 other distros.

_{Stock Ubuntu login (left) → awesome-ssh-login-screen (right)}

Plain-text preview

╭─ web ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ 10.0.0.12 ├──╮
│                                   OS       Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS aarch64        │
│                    .ooo.          Host     KVM Virtual Machine               │
│             .:looo looo:          Kernel   6.14.0-1017-oracle                │
│           .looo''   ''            Uptime   142d 0h 2m                        │
│           'ol'       :oo.         Packages 994 (dpkg)                        │
│       .ooo.           ooo         Users    deploy                            │
│       'ooo'           ooo         CPU      Neoverse-N1 × 4                   │
│           .ol.       :oo'         Procs    326  ·  2 ssh sessions            │
│           'looo..   ..            Public   203.0.113.24                      │
│             ':looo looo:          Docker   28.1.1                            │
│                    'ooo'          Time     Sun 27 Sep, 09:48 UTC             │
│                                           ████████████████████████           │
│                                           ████████████████████████           │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

╭─ resources ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ cpu  ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■  15%  of 4 cores                   │
│ ram  ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■  21%  4.9G of 23G used             │
│ net  ↓ 2.6K/s   ↑ 2.8K/s    total  ↓ 30G  ↑ 25G                              │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

╭─ docker ─────────────────────────────────────────┤ 4/4 running · 2 stacks ├──╮
│ ◆ nginx-proxy-manager              /opt/stacks/nginx-proxy-manager       1/1 │
│  └─● nginx-proxy-manager-app… jc21/nginx-proxy-manager     host       12d    │
│                                                                              │
│ ◆ myapp                            /opt/stacks/myapp                     3/3 │
│  ├─● myapp-web                you/myapp                    :8080       3d    │
│  ├─●♥myapp-postgres           postgres:17-alpine                       3d    │
│  └─●♥myapp-redis              redis:7.2                                3d    │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

╭─ status ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ssh      ▲ 284 failed logins from 31 IPs in 24h · top 198.51.100.7           │
│ updates  ▲ 136 packages · apt list --upgradable                              │
│ reboot   ✖ required libc6 linux-base linux-image-6.17.0-1011-oracle          │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

  Last login: Sun Sep 27 09:30:49 2026 from 10.0.0.12

Features

• Header — your distro's logo in its colors, with OS, host, kernel, uptime, packages, users, CPU, processes, public IP, Docker version and a two-row color palette
• Resources — real CPU usage and network speed (sampled over ~0.2 s), RAM, total traffic since boot
• Docker — containers grouped by compose project, with status dot (running / starting / unhealthy / stopped), ♥ for passing health checks, image, published ports and uptime. Hidden when Docker isn't available
• Status — failed SSH logins in the last 24 h (with the top offending IP), pending updates, reboot-required
• Last login line in the same style
• Flicker-free & fast — built in memory and written in a single write; ~0.3 s. Nothing blocks on the network or on slow package managers — those values are cached and refreshed in the background
• Honest — rows it can't determine on a system are hidden, never guessed

Install

One command — run it as your normal user, it asks for sudo when needed:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RajdeepVerma/awesome-ssh-login-screen/main/install.sh | sh

No curl? wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RajdeepVerma/awesome-ssh-login-screen/main/install.sh | sh

Or from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/RajdeepVerma/awesome-ssh-login-screen.git
cd awesome-ssh-login-screen && sh install.sh

Several servers at once:

for h in web01 web02 db01; do
  ssh -t "$h" 'curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RajdeepVerma/awesome-ssh-login-screen/main/install.sh | sh'
done

Re-running the installer updates to the latest version. Open a new SSH session to see it.

Supported distros

The installer picks how to hook into SSH logins:

Mode	Used on	How it runs
motd	Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives	pam_motd runs /etc/update-motd.d/01-awesome-ssh-login-screen on every SSH login
profile	everything else (Fedora, RHEL family, Arch, openSUSE, Alpine, …)	/etc/profile.d/zz-awesome-ssh-login-screen.sh, once per interactive SSH login shell

Force one with sh install.sh --mode motd or --mode profile. Profile mode works with bash, and with zsh on distros whose zsh reads /etc/profile (Arch, Fedora, openSUSE); it doesn't run for fish.

What each row reads, per distro:

Row	Source
Packages	dpkg, rpm, pacman, apk, xbps, plus flatpak / snap
Updates	Ubuntu's update-notifier; else apt, dnf/yum, zypper, checkupdates (pacman-contrib), apk, xbps — from their cached metadata, in the background
Reboot	/run/reboot-required (Debian/Ubuntu), needs-restarting -r (RHEL family), or the running kernel's modules being gone (Arch, …)
Failed logins / last login	/var/log/auth.log, /var/log/secure or the systemd journal (sshd / sshd-session); last as a fallback for last login

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12, Fedora 41, Rocky 8, AlmaLinux 9, Oracle Linux 9, Amazon Linux 2023, Arch Linux ARM and Alpine 3.

Distro logos

logos.txt holds ~200 pre-generated logos, picked by /etc/os-release: your distro's ID, then its ID_LIKE parents, then Tux. Most come from fastfetch (MIT) — the compact variants that fit next to the info column; Ubuntu uses its own hand-tuned logo from tools/logos-custom.txt.

Regenerate from a fastfetch checkout:

python3 tools/gen-logos.py /path/to/fastfetch > logos.txt

Add or override a logo by putting a block in tools/logos-custom.txt — @ lists the os-release IDs it applies to, = the colors for $1, $2, … as SGR codes, then the art:

@ myos myos-server
= 38;2;250;150;90 37
$1  /\
$1 /  \ $2myos

What the installer changes

Change	Why
Adds /usr/local/share/awesome-ssh-login-screen/ (dashboard.sh, logos.txt)	the dashboard
motd mode: adds /etc/update-motd.d/01-awesome-ssh-login-screen and chmod -x on the stock 00-header, 10-help-text, 10-uname, 50-motd-news, 50-landscape-sysinfo, 90-updates-available, 91-contract-ua-esm-status, 98-reboot-required	runs the dashboard and replaces those parts — files are kept, nothing is deleted
profile mode: adds /etc/profile.d/zz-awesome-ssh-login-screen.sh	runs the dashboard on SSH login
Adds /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/50-awesome-ssh-login-screen.conf with PrintLastLog no, then sshd -t and reload	the "Last login" line is shown by the dashboard instead. Skipped when sshd doesn't include sshd_config.d (e.g. RHEL 8) — then sshd keeps its own line
Removes your ~/.hushlogin	a hushlogin file hides the MOTD

Existing SSH sessions are not affected by the reload.

Uninstall

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RajdeepVerma/awesome-ssh-login-screen/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall

Restores the stock login screen and sshd's own "Last login" line.

Requirements

• Linux with bash (4.2+) and awk. Alpine: apk add bash
• A true-color terminal (iTerm2, Windows Terminal, GNOME Terminal, Alacritty, kitty, WezTerm, …), 80+ columns
• Optional: Docker for the docker panel (in profile mode your user needs access to it). Compose stacks under /opt/stacks/<name> show their folder

Customize

The dashboard is one bash script: dashboard.sh.

• Colors — the palette block at the top (FG, AC, OR, GR, YE, RD, …)
• Width — W=80
• Panels — each panel is a self-contained # ── … panel ── section; delete one to hide it

Preview without logging in: bash /usr/local/share/awesome-ssh-login-screen/dashboard.sh --profile

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Distro logo art in logos.txt is from fastfetch (MIT; its notice is at the top of that file).