.profile and bash.rc

sigint-ninja · 05-07-2015, 06:43 PM

hi guys

i was taught that /etc/profile was global for environmental variables and settings...and ~/.profile was specific to the user...

and that bash.rc and ~/.bash.rc was for aliases and functions...i was trying to setup a permanent alias in my profile to a common ssh command and read that it should be going into .profile??? is it really not strict or just a rule of thumb?

unSpawn · 05-08-2015, 03:30 AM

Historically and standards-wise local additions should go to /usr/local and personal changes to ~/. The reason for that is that when upgrading a whole system these changes don't get undone, reverted or otherwise lost. Given that functions, aliases and commands that are used system-wide could be in /etc/profile.d/* but personal ones should be in ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc. As far as "strictness" is concerned it depends how you look at it: casual users may think of it as "no fun" but others really don't want each system they need to work on to show a difference in behaviour that might potentially bite them...

pan64 · 05-08-2015, 04:04 AM

I would suggest you to read man bash especially the section about login (look for invocation)

P4z · 05-08-2015, 06:25 AM

EDIT-DELETE: posted similar content in the next post after not finding this original one. sorry for confusion. hope to never see it again by me :P

P4z · 05-08-2015, 06:31 AM

sigint-ninja, keep in mind that other shells e.g. tcsh incorporate different syntax than bash therefore be careful about your general profile scripts and use conditions when required

for ssh customs you may be also interested in the Host directive of ssh_config

personally I create custom commands in /usr/local/bin more frequently than shell aliases because they are much more flexible

good luck!

sudowtf · 05-08-2015, 08:52 AM

I don't know the "standard" but for my ~/ somewhere in time i came across this and therefore you can proceed as your O.P. describes:

In ~/.profile, i have the following code near the end:

Code:

# if running bash
if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
    # include .bashrc if it exists
    if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
	. "$HOME/.bashrc"
    fi
fi

which implies it only loads for bash. You could remove the outer if-statement if you use other shells.

GazL · 05-08-2015, 09:52 AM

I use this:

Code:

# /etc/profile.d/80-bashrc.sh  #########################################
#
# Run user's ~/.bashrc file if shell is bash, and interactive:
#

if [ -n "$BASH" ] && [ -z "$POSIXLY_CORRECT" ] ; then
  case $- in
  *i* )  # Interactive shell
         if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
            source ~/.bashrc
         fi
         ;;
  esac
fi

########################################################################

It's not appropriate to run ~/.bashrc for non-interactive shells, shells other than bash, or for bash when running as /bin/sh (POSIXLY_CORRECT).

If you want to do it on a user by user basis rather than system wide you can put it in the users ~/.bash_profile instead of /etc/profile or a member of profile.d.

sudowtf · 05-08-2015, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GazL

[...]It's not appropriate[...]

Thank you!