Special user, .bashrc not being executed upon login

[ratcheer]

I have started using the PostgreSQL database server. It created a special user, postgres, when I installed the package. Except for one little thing, it is working great.

When I "su - postgres" or "su -l postgres" (which should be equivalent), the .bashrc I created in user postgres's home directory is not being executed. If, after login, I run ". ./.bashrc", the profile is executed and does exactly what I want, which is just setting a couple of environment variables. I have verified that the user's shell is bash and that the .bashrc profile is in its home directory, owned by user postgres.

I even tried making the file executable, but that did not help.

I have read the man pages for both su and bash, and both seem to indicate that the profile should be being executed. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Tim

[Paddy Landau]

~/.bashrc is run on opening a new terminal, not when logging in.

Place your code at the end of ~/.profile instead and let me know if that works.

[ratcheer]

That did work, thank you. I guess I misunderstood the su manpage.

I always used .profile when I worked on Solaris systems, professionally, but for some reason I switched to using .bashrc when I moved to Linux. I think I was hitting some situations when .profile was not working the way I wanted it to on Linux. In Solaris, it had always worked whether I was opening a new terminal or running su from an existing terminal.

Thanks,
Tim

[Paddy Landau]

... I misunderstood the su manpage.

It's not there; it's in the bash manual.

To summarise:

Bash runs the following scripts on login:

• /etc/profile
• The first found of ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, ~/.profile (Ubuntu by default uses the latter)

On entering an interactive terminal, Bash also executes:

• /etc/bash.bashrc
• ~/.bashrc

On logout, Bash runs:

• ~/.bash_logout
• /etc/bash.bash.logout

[ratcheer]

Ok, thanks again. Here is the part that confused me:

The optional argument - may be used to provide an environment similar to what the user would expect had the user logged in directly.

Also, there are similar details in the explanation of the -l option.

Tim

[felipe1982]

On entering an interactive terminal, Bash also executes:

• /etc/bash.bashrc
• ~/.bashrc

I don't think is also executes those. I think it only executes ~/.bashrc.
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/man...tup-Files.html

[Paddy Landau]

I don't think is also executes those. I think it only executes ~/.bashrc.
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/man...tup-Files.html

You may not think so, but it does.

I tested this today on Ubuntu, both 12.04 and 12.10.

When you enter an interactive terminal, Bash does indeed execute both /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc.