linux - How do you make it obvious you are on a production system?

A few of us at my company have root access on production servers. We are looking for a good way to make it exceedingly clear when we have ssh'd in.

A few ideas we have had are:

• Bright red prompt


• Answer a riddle before getting a shell


• Type a random word before getting a shell

What are some techniques you guys use to differentiate production systems?

Answer

The red prompt is a good idea, which I also use.

Another trick is to put a large ASCII-art warning in the /etc/motd file.
Having something like this greet you when you log in should get your attention:

 _______ _    _ _____  _____   _____  _____            
|__   __| |  | |_   _|/ ____| |_   _|/ ____|     /\    
   | |  | |__| | | | | (___     | | | (___      /  \   
   | |  |  __  | | |  \___ \    | |  \___ \    / /\ \  

   | |  | |  | |_| |_ ____) |  _| |_ ____) |  / ____ \ 
   |_|  |_|  |_|_____|_____/  |_____|_____/  /_/    \_\


 _____  _____   ____  _____  _    _  _____ _______ _____ ____  _   _ 
|  __ \|  __ \ / __ \|  __ \| |  | |/ ____|__   __|_   _/ __ \| \ | |
| |__) | |__) | |  | | |  | | |  | | |       | |    | || |  | |  \| |
|  ___/|  _  /| |  | | |  | | |  | | |       | |    | || |  | | . ` |
| |    | | \ \| |__| | |__| | |__| | |____   | |   _| || |__| | |\  |
|_|    |_|  \_\\____/|_____/ \____/ \_____|  |_|  |_____\____/|_| \_|



 __  __          _____ _    _ _____ _   _ ______ 
|  \/  |   /\   / ____| |  | |_   _| \ | |  ____|
| \  / |  /  \ | |    | |__| | | | |  \| | |__   
| |\/| | / /\ \| |    |  __  | | | | . ` |  __|  
| |  | |/ ____ \ |____| |  | |_| |_| |\  | |____ 
|_|  |_/_/    \_\_____|_|  |_|_____|_| \_|______|

You could generate such a warning on this website or you could use the figlet
command.

Like Nicholas Smith suggested in the comments, you could spice things up with some dragons or other animals using the cowsay command.

Instead of using the /etc/motd file, you could also call cowsay or figlet in the .profile file.