.bash_profile not executed at login

Kiwi944 · 10-30-2008, 11:54 PM

Hello All

First off I am new to Linux and trying to learn about shell scripts.

I have created a file (having not been able to locate it) in the following location:

/home/alan/.bash_profile

I have entered the following entries and rebooted but they don't seem to have been implemented.

Code:

alias l='ls -l'

Could someone please advise what I am doing wrong here as I am stuck.

Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop running in VPC 2007

Thanks in advance.

i92guboj · 10-31-2008, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiwi944

Hello All

First off I am new to Linux and trying to learn about shell scripts.

I have created a file (having not been able to locate it) in the following location:

/home/alan/.bash_profile

I have entered the following entries and rebooted but they don't seem to have been implemented.

Code:

alias l='ls -l'

Could someone please advise what I am doing wrong here as I am stuck.

Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop running in VPC 2007

Thanks in advance.

Read the INVOCATION section of the man bash page, for further reference.

I will briefly say here that .bash_profile is only for login shells (i.e. you login in text mode into a shell, not X). For shells inside terminal emulators, the file you need is ~/.bashrc.

In either case, you don't need to reboot, you just need to reload your shell. A time saver that I use is this:

Code:

exec bash

Which closes the current bash and opens a new one. That saves me the *huge* work of having to close my terminal and open a new one

Kiwi944 · 10-31-2008, 01:06 PM

Thanks for the information and link, I will read it through. Thanks also for the hint with the time saver.

gururaj.jois · 06-25-2009, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

Read the INVOCATION section of the man bash page, for further reference.

I will briefly say here that .bash_profile is only for login shells (i.e. you login in text mode into a shell, not X). For shells inside terminal emulators, the file you need is ~/.bashrc.

In either case, you don't need to reboot, you just need to reload your shell. A time saver that I use is this:

Code:

exec bash

Which closes the current bash and opens a new one. That saves me the *huge* work of having to close my terminal and open a new one

Does it executes ~/.bashrc every time we login??

mike11 · 06-25-2009, 03:42 AM

Yes: every login and every new bash terminal window you open.

There are three files which are supposed to be used in login shells: .bash_profile, .profile and .bash_login . I've found that only .profile is read.

i92guboj · 06-25-2009, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike11

Yes: every login and every new bash terminal window you open.

Nope, unless ~/.bashrc is symlinked to either ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login or ~/.profile.

~/.bashrc is only sourced on interactive non-login shells. As the man page says.

Quote:

There are three files which are supposed to be used in login shells: .bash_profile, .profile and .bash_login . I've found that only .profile is read.

These are, as you say, for login shells. In this case ~/.bashrc is not sourced.

They are searched for in this order from the first to the last: ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile. Only the first one found is used. So, if ~/.bash_profile exists and is readable no other file should be sourced, even if ~/.bash_profile is an empty file. So there must be something weird on your system or your files.

Confusion can happen for many things. For example, when people create symlinks from ~/.bashrc to ~/.bash_profile (or any other similar file). Or when people who like to use root all the time create a ~/.bash_profile file in the home of other users. In this case the created file might not be readable and hence it's ignored.

onebuck · 06-25-2009, 07:22 AM

Hi,

You could setup a .bashrc & .bash_profile for your user;

Code:

sample .bashrc;
:~$ cat .bashrc

#.bashrc
#08-30-06 12:20 

# Add bin to path

export PATH="$PATH:/sbin:/usr/sbin:$HOME/bin"

#export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"

# Dynamic resizing
shopt -s checkwinsize

# Custom prompt
#PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

#08-29-06 11:40

if [ `id -un` = root ]; then
   PS1='\[\033[1;31m\]\h:\w\$\[\033[0m\] '
 else
   PS1='\[\033[1;32m\]\h:\w\$\[\033[0m\] '
fi

#
# Add color
eval `dircolors -b`

# User defined aliases
alias cls='clear'
alias clls='clear; ls'
alias ll='ls -l'
alias lsa='ls -A'
alias lsg='ls | grep'
alias lsp='ls -1 /var/log/packages/ > package-list'
alias na='nano'
alias web='links -g -download-dir ~/ www.google.com'

#08-29-06 11:50

#To clean up and cover your tracks once you log off
#Depending on your version of BASH, you might have to use
# the other form of this command
   trap "rm -f ~$LOGNAME/.bash_history" 0

#The older KSH-style form
#   trap 0 rm -f ~$LOGNAME/.bash_history

Code:

sample .bash_profile;

~$ cat .bash_profile
# .bash_profile
#08-30-06 12:21 

# Source .bashrc
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
        . ~/.bashrc
fi

The '.bashrc' is very useful!

EDIT: I generally check the OP date but missed this one.