whats this bash prompt?

sachinh · 06-26-2007, 12:16 PM

We have RedHat Linux 4.0 version.
When a particular user say abc logs in to his account , he lands into something like this.

-bash-3.00$
/home/abc

Dont know what the problem is. Rest is all fine with that user. But just wonder why is he getting this prompt. Note that for all the users , we get proper shell prompt . Eg.

For a user test , when he logs in , he gets,

[test@SERVER ~]$
/home/test

Any idea what it is ??

justsimran · 06-26-2007, 01:29 PM

1. CHeck this file /etc/passwd
is this user "abc" having the /bin/bash shell or not....
seems like it is not getting the shell,,,

2.check this file and let us knw....

Agrouf · 06-26-2007, 05:09 PM

You should also check environment variable $PS1 and how does .profile set this variable.

sachinh · 06-27-2007, 10:52 AM

Checked the passwd file ...it was proper. I mean the user has been assigned /bin/bash shell.

Secondly when I checked , the user home directory did not contain any .bash_profile or .bashrc file in it. So I transferred the same from other users home directory. And the problem got fixed. Dunno how come it happened though.
Anyways thanx for everything.!!!!!!

timmeke · 06-28-2007, 08:51 AM

As Agrouf pointed out, the $PS1 (and/or $PS2 & $PS3) environment variables are obviously set in the bashrc/profile files that you copied from another user. These variables ultimately control what the prompt looks like (for Bash shells at least).

Try checking "man bash" for details on PS1 and prompting.