I just ordered a VPS running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit.

For some reason when I ssh into the machine and press the up arrow I get ^A[[ that shows. I've been searching on and off for two days and can't seem to find a solution.

Could someone please tell me how to get the history working correctly?

In addition, the .profile or .bash_profile file does not seem to be loading. I've tried setting my prompt to a color prompt but I get the same weird characters. I've tried setting the color_prompt=yes and force_color_prompt=yes but as mentioned the file doesn't seem to be loading.

The .bashrc file is only loading AFTER you enter a shell from within bash.

what is the command you used to log in? What is your login shell?

Not really sure what you mean. My VPS is remote so I'm using the terminal on my laptop to ssh into with:

# ssh IP.ADDRESS -p PORT

The username is the same on my laptop as the remote server so it is attempting to login (successfully) with the same username.

yes, that's fine: ssh host -p port is ok. You can check your shell by executing echo $0

$ echo $0
-sh

1 members found this post helpful.

try ssh host -p port bash --login -i

Same thing... I just tried that command to login via ssh and this is what I got after it logged in:

bash: no job control in this shell

There is still no color in the prompt and the arrow keys are still showing those weird characters.

the strange behavior is caused because your login shell is sh, not bash. This is normal. You can try ssh as you did it before and execute bash on VPS. Have you modified your .profile, .bashrc or any other login related files? (and what about the /etc/profile?)

I have edited the .bashrc and .profile files. I commented out the line saying to only load .bashrc if interactive mode.

How can I set it up to use bash instead of sh?

I was able to get it working by going into the /etc/passwd file and changing the shell to bash.

Thanks for the help!

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm having the same trouble on Ubuntu 12.02 server. I login from a windows PC with Putty. One one account everything is fine, the arrow keys and history work Ok. However, on another account on same server, the arrow keys work as described here.

Both accounts show as being bash shells and there is no difference between the .login and .bashrc files for both users.

Any ideas what the issue is here
..thegerm

Update: the problem was really as Jim Thorton posted, I changed the shell type in /etc/passwd with a 'chsh' command now it it works fine.