tab completion for service command on debian

Question

I have two systems with debian squeeze installed. On one system when I type:

service <TAB> 

it shows me all available service (from /etc/init.d)

on the other system it shows me all files from the current directory. Does anyone know which setting changes that behaviour ?

UPDATE:

The file /etc/bash_completion.d/service was missing. I copied it from the machine where it is working. If I type complete -p | grep service it shows me:

complete -F _service service

On the machine where it is not working that command shows me nothing. I executed complete -F _service service in the command line, after that, the command service <TAB> shows me:

service -su: completion: function `_service' not found

this function is defined in the service file I recently copied, for some reasons it can't be found ...

Solution

First of all check if bash-completion is installed run:

 $ dpkg -l bash-completion | tail -1

it should output something like:

ii  bash-completion  1:1.3-1  programmable completion for the bash shell

If output is empty thus install it with:

aptitude install bash-completion

Then check if it is enabled:

 $ grep -A 2 bash_completion ~/.bashrc /etc/bash.bashrc

Should output something like

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

If nothing like this or it is commented (has # after ~/.bashrc:) then add/uncomment

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

to ~/.bashrc and reread it with

. ~/.bashrc

After that it should work fine.

Comments

[Janne Pikkarainen]

Do you have /etc/bash_completion.d/service file present?

[markus]

The file wasn't there, I've added it, but it's still not working. I've seen with complete -p I can display all bindings, on the machine where it is working it shows me a lot of binding, where it's not working it displays nothing. I think it doesn't bind for some reason the files in /etc/bash_completion.d ...

[markus]

bash completion works on both machines, but different. if I type service <TAB> it shows me all services on one machine, on the other one the files of the current directory.

[rush]

Are versions of bash-completion the same?

[markus]

same debian versions, some bash-completion

[markus]

one difference is on server 1 I'm directly on the console, an server 2 I'm connected via ssh.

[adaptr]

Directory completion is NOT bash_completion, which is an ugly hack perpetrated by Debuntu on the readline library (which is what shells use to ...read...lines). bash_completion is NOT enabled on the second box.