bash NOT reading .bashrc on RHEL 6

Question

machine A --RHEL 7 and updated.
machine B -- RHEL 6 and updated.

If I do this on A (RHEL 7)

ssh B

I get in, like I should, but my .bashrc has NOT been run. This is new behavior to me. I want my .bashrc to be run on the machine B (RHEL 6). I did diffs on the /etc/ssh/sshd_config and /etc/ssh/ssh_config, and they are different but I don't see why these should matter.

ssh_config differs only by whitespace and comments.

Yes, I saw the stuff but even with that it mangled the diff output because of the less than/greater than in it. Is there something in there that I should care about? I hacked and slashed, other than whitespace, comments, and environment variable (AcceptEnv) here is what the diff boiled down to.

the 6 side

Protocol 2

the 7 side

HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
AuthorizedKeysFile  .ssh/authorized_keys
UsePrivilegeSeparation sandbox

So, where do I look to find out why my .bashrc won't run? My .profile, again:

alias lo='exit'
alias l='ls -CF'
alias ..='cd ..'

and my .bashrc:

PRINTER=its1
export PRINTER


DISPLAY=jgs:0.0
export DISPLAY

PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/opt/bin:/home/gl/bin:.

export PATH

PROXY=whiteproxy.arlut.utexas.edu:3128
export PROXY

cd /home/gl

if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
        . /etc/bashrc
fi

/etc/bashrc is stock.

Solution 1

The ~/.bashrc file does not always get read: see Bash Startup Files in the manual.

Does your ~/.bash_profile (or ~/.profile) invoke your .bashrc file? Often this appears in .profile files:

# if running bash
if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
    # include .bashrc if it exists
    if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
    . "$HOME/.bashrc"
    fi
fi

Solution 2

Perhaps the documentation is confusing but Bash's standard behavior is to source your "profile" (.bash_profile, .bash_login, .profile whichever it finds first in that order) on interactive login shells and .bashrc on interactive non-login shells.

Sshd typically spawns a login shell where opening an X11 terminal window is typically a non-login shell.

So you should not expect your .bashrc to be read when you ssh into a machine.

That said I generally recommend users add a line like the following to their "profile"

[[ -r ~/.bashrc ]] &&  source ~/.bashrc

Finally, /etc/bashrc is never directly read by Bush and you'll find no mention of it in the bash man page. It's a file RedHat added and the expectation is that your ~/.bashrc file will source it. The default ~/.bashrc that should have been in your home directory when your account was created should be doing that. If not, you should find an example in the /etc/skel directory.

Comments

[yoonix]

Bash reads the files, not ssh. Read the Bash Guide for Beginners Chapter 3 or this question on Super User to learn how and when to use .bashrc and / or .bash_profile. Also, your question says .bashrc isn't read on RHEL 7, then your example shows you logging in to RHEL 6.

[LexMulier]

I had a similar problem and the explanation that helped me get to the bottom of the issue was this: serverfault.com/a/593487/96078