bashrc not loading until run bash command

Question

I am running freshly installed Arch Linux. When I log into a user (running bash) and try to use an alias from .bashrc, it gives me the 'command not found' error. But, if I reenter bash via the 'bash' command, the command works just fine.

Yes, I am already in bash.

env initially:

SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

env after running bash, it remains:

SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

So I'm not quite sure where the problem is.

Possible duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/a/415444/208997 — Simon, Aug 23 '13 at 02:19

sjnarv · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-03T20:40:10.253

94

Read the INVOCATION section from "bash(1)" for full details (that's the man page for bash; use man bash). Your first shell upon logging in is a "login shell", which means that the .bashrc file is not sourced. Your second invocation creates an interactive shell, where .bashrc is sourced.

If you always want the content of your .bashrc file processed, you can add the following lines to your .bash_profile file, creating that file if it does not already exist:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
    . ~/.bashrc
fi

Per its man page, bash "[...] 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." Conventions and policies of your local system will determine which, if any, of these files already exist.

A word of caution: be aware that creating a new .bash_profile in your home directory could have the unintended side-effect of preventing the reading and executing of commands in a .bash_login or .profile file already present, changing further the behavior of subsequent logins.

edited Aug 03 '17 at 20:40

answered Aug 23 '13 at 02:18

sjnarv

2,334
16
13

4

And create '~/.bash_login' file if not yet here – Jean Davy Dec 17 '14 at 10:34
2

or use `~/.profile` for any Bourne-compatible login shells. (bash) – Qwerty Apr 28 '16 at 15:05
1

@Qwerty: if you maintain your environment such that ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bash_login do not exist, using ~/.profile works. From a version 4.2 bash man page: "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." – sjnarv May 09 '16 at 16:18
Thanks for the information guys, just started using AIX and finding it very difficult that the bashrc file is not getting loaded automatically, their is no /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, ~/.profile scripts present in the machine but now created one as @jean Davy said. your answers are just to the point. Big cheers.. – Prabhat Kumar Singh Mar 20 '17 at 15:30

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 23 '13 at 02:07

5

Have you looked at your ~/.profile, ~/.bash_login and ~/.bash_profile files?

answered Aug 23 '13 at 02:07

Paul Evans

27,315
3
37
54

2

Thanks, totally forgot about that. Not used to having to set up stuff thanks to Ubuntu. – mauzy_broadway Aug 23 '13 at 02:21

bashrc not loading until run bash command

2 Answers2

Linked