Interactive shells and login shells

See also switching users using su

Whenever a new user is created, by default, a set of (usually hidden) config files will get copied to the user’s new home folder. These files are actually duplicate of all the files contained in the /etc/skel directory:

$ ls -la /etc/skel/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root   62 Feb  2 13:31 .
drwxr-xr-x. 78 root root 8192 Mar 28 14:09 ..
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root   18 Sep  6  2017 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root  193 Sep  6  2017 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root  231 Sep  6  2017 .bashrc

the useradd commands automatically copies all the content from this folder and places it in the user’s home directory.

when a user logs into a RHEL machine (using username and password), the following scripts are executed automatically (in this order):

/etc/profile           # (this sets up user env variables, e.g. path, hostname, histsize….etc)…this script will also trigger:

/etc/profile.d         # (directory containing lots of other files.

{user’s home folder}/.bash_profile # can be used to add your own stuff including overriding what was set in the /etc/profile script.

{user’s home folder}/.bashrc       # (used for setting local variables e.g. the PS1 variables)

However these does get executed when a non-login shell (aka interactive shell) is generated. a interactive shell is a shell that gets opened but without getting a username/password prompt. Here are some ways to start a non-login shell:

–                 Applications=>system tools=>terminal

–              When you start a shell script, linux will automatically create a new shell for that script to run in, and this new shell is a non-login shell.

–                 At the command line, type ksh, followed by bash.

In a non-login shell the following scripts are run:

1. {user’s home folder}/bashrc,

2. /etc/bashrc,

3. /etc/profile.d (have a look through these script to familiarize yourself)

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