In certain situations, system administrators want (or even require) a message to be shown to users connecting via ThinLinc. There are a number of different mechanisms for achieving this, for example by using the introduction text of ThinLinc’s profile chooser.
Another common method - particularly in situations where the message must be displayed prior to authentication - is to use an SSH banner. Although this is supported by ThinLinc, previous versions of the ThinLinc client have had issues with the SSH banner interfering with smart card authentication.
For the upcoming release of ThinLinc (4.19.0), this has been resolved. It is now possible to use an SSH banner with smart card authentication in the ThinLinc client. One potential enhancement would be allowing users to abort the connection after reading the message, for example if they don’t accept the terms of use. This is being tracked as bugzilla 8585.
If your organization uses smartcards and you need to display a message to users prior to authentication, let us know how ThinLinc 4.19.0 works for you.