Bash – Root’s .bashrc Not Executing on sudo -i

11.10bashbashrcsudo

On one of my Ubuntu 11.10 servers, when I use sudo -i to become the root user, root's .bashrc is not being executed. On all other servers, whose relevant configurations are identical as far as I know, it is being executed properly.

Here's what I've checked:

.bashrc exists in /root, owned by root:root, permissions 644
/etc/profile and /etc/bash.bashrc are being executed
root's shell is set to "/bin/bash"
I can execute .bashrc with source .bashrc, after which everything is normal for that session.
I can also type bash to execute bash manually after I've sudoed to root, and .bashrc is then executed
ps confirms that the running shell for my root login is bash.

Anything else to check?

Best Answer

You should look at the presence and content of the file /root/.profile.

The init file ~/.bashrc is not sourced in login shells: on Ubuntu it is sourced from ~/.profile

Furthermore, the file /root/.profile is not copied from /etc/skel/ as for other users, it is instead copied from /usr/share/base-files/dot.profile during installation of package base-files.

Original Answer

From the manpage of bash:

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.

So you may have a file called .bash_profile or .bash_login in your home directory. If either of these exists, bash will use it instead of .profile.

Ubuntu – Changing behavior of bash prompt when functioning as root

It will also depend on how you become the root user. You need to make the change in the root user's .bashrc if you are using something like su - root or sudo -i, where you read in the environment.

With sudo -s, you should be reading your own .bashrc.

Consider adding some printf or echo statements to debug your code, to tell you when it has executed.

Use the id command to make sure you are who you think you are:

root@tau:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)

Best Answer

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