2010.11.10 17:06
When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login
option, it first reads and executes commands from the file/etc/profile
, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for~/.bash_profile
, ~/.bash_login
, and ~/.profile
, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The --noprofile
option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior.
...
When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, bash reads and executes commands from /etc/bash.bashrc
and ~/.bashrc
, if these files exist. This may be inhibited by using the --norc
option. The --rcfile
file option will force bash to read and execute commands from file instead of /etc/bash.bashrc
and ~/.bashrc
.
.profile
is for things that are not specifically related to Bash, like environment variables PATH
and friends, and should be available anytime. For example,.profile
should also be loaded when starting a graphical desktop session..bashrc
is for the configuring the interactive Bash usage, like Bash aliases, setting your favorite editor, setting the Bash prompt, etc..bash_profile
is for making sure that both the things in .profile
and .bashrc
are loaded for login shells. For example, .bash_profile
could be something simple like. ~/.profile . ~/.bashrc