linux virtual machines with a bridge interface, and I want to display the machine's IP address after the machine is booted (in login, it usually shows the release and kernel). This is just a text file...you write it in the same way you would send text to the file using any other shell script. Something like this will replace /etc/issue with your ip address: ifconfig eth0 | awk '/inet addr/ {print $2}' | cut - f2 - d : > /etc/ issue Obviously, depending on the information you want in /etc/issue, you can make this more complex file at will. You can write to this file using the local equivalent /etc/rc.d/rc.local (usually executed after all other startup scripts). On CentOS 7 and Debian 8, just append the following line to /etc/issue My IP address : \4 This will resolve to the machine’s IPv4 address. If you have multiple network interfaces and want to select a specific network interface, you can use s pecify it My IP address : \4 { eth0 } Check man getty for the li...