10 second delay between login and shell prompt.

Question

I've got a strange problem. After I enter my password on a debian 6.0 system, I get the motd but then there is a 5-10 second pause until I get a shell prompt. If I press ctrl-c during that pause the prompt comes up instantly. What could be happening here? Am I killing the login process? Why might it be taking so long to invoke bash? I appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks

Solution

It's likely there's something in your .bashrc or .bash_profile. Or maybe some other startup file (/etc/profile et al).

Comments

[Admin]

Thanks, it was indeed in my .bashrc; bash-completion was the culprit