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4

~/.bashrc not run when logging in as root

rated 0 times [ 4] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 3372 / 1 Year ago, sun, may 21, 2023, 6:28:04

When I log in as root:

ubuntu login: root                                                                                  

Password:                                                                                               

Last login: Tue Apr  7 17:31:14 CDT 2020 on ttyS0                                                       

Welcome to Ubuntu 19.04 (GNU/Linux 5.0.0-38-generic x86_64)

My /root/.bashrc (and therefore /root/.bash_aliases) are not run. Is this normal? How can I fix this?

Some more info:

# getent passwd| grep root                                     

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

My /root/.profile is normal:

# cat /root/.profile                                           

# ~/.profile: executed by Bourne-compatible login shells.                       



if [ "$BASH" ]; then                                                            

  if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then                                                     

    . ~/.bashrc                                                                 

  fi                                                                            

fi                                                                              



mesg n || true

$BASH is set correctly:

# echo $BASH                                                   

/bin/bash

And /root/.bashrc is also normal. Here's a snippet:

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then                                                 

    . ~/.bash_aliases                                                           

fi

If I do ". ~/.bashrc" from the command line, it works as expected.

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dileble

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2 Years ago

answered 1 Year ago unsmmoth · Accepted Answer

If either ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login exists, bash will run that instead of ~/.profile. Some software installers will helpfully add their setup steps to (usually) ~/.bash_profile, so even if you delete it (and merge its contents into ~/.profile), it might get recreated later.

Ideally, I'd recommend moving all the bash-specific things (i.e. sourcing ~/.bashrc) into ~/.bash_profile, have it also source the generic ~/.profile, leaving just the mesg in the generic ~/.profile (so it'll work if you ever start in a different shell)

So here's what I'd put in ~/.profile:

# cat /root/.profile                                           

# ~/.profile: executed by Bourne-compatible login shells.                       



mesg n || true

And ~/.bash_profile (note that it doesn't have to test $BASH 'cause it's already in a bash-specific file):

# ~/.bash_profile: executed by bash login shells.



if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then

    . ~/.bashrc

fi



# If the generic profile exists, source that as well.

if [ -f ~/.profile ]; then                                                     

    . ~/. profile                                                                 

fi