$ logout bash: logout: not login shell: use exit'

Question

Sometimes when login out of the shell (CLI), I get this warning/error message:

s$ logout bash: logout: not login shell: use éexit'

There are two times when this happens:

1. On my remote server, when I login using a user account that I created, when I try to logout, I get that error

2. Today (first time), I was experimenting with using openssl to encrypt files and accidentally piped the output of a binary file to stdout. I ha to press Ctrl-C to break the stream. after that I got this error when I tried to logout:

s$ logout bash: logout: not login shell: use éexit'

notice the strange characters?

Does anyone know what is going on and how I may fix this?

BTW, I am running Ubuntu Lucid (10.0.4 LTS)

Solution

Your problem comes from piping binary files to stdout.

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Doctor: Don't do that.

Just use the reset command whenever you mess up the terminal settings.

Comments

[morpheous]

hehe, I like your analogy - BUT, I already knew that piping binary to stdout would cause strange chars on the screen... what I don't understand is the message I get when I try to logout. I suppose the binary data to screen is a red herring. My real question is why do I sometimes get this msg when I try to logout from a shell command: 'logout bash: logout: not login shell: use exit' ?