Ubuntu – the difference between /etc/profile and .bashrc

bashbashrc

As the title suggests I am asking about the main differences between .bashrc and /etc/profile. What I know is that .bashrc is a shell script that runs on login(I guess). And I know /etc/profile runs on ssh login or terminal login I also guess. Could someone please steer me in the right direction here?

Best Answer

I think this answer sums it up nicely:

From man bash:

Invocation

[...]

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 ~/.bashrc, if that file exists. 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 ~/.bashrc.

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