Re: [Help-bash] The execution of /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc for non interactive shells

[Chet Ramey]

On 4/6/17 3:30 AM, Cristian Zoicas wrote:

> 
> Now let's analize what happens under ssh.
> 
>  I) When running "ssh address@hidden" bash executes the system/user profiles
> (/etc/profile and ~/.profile)
> II) When running "ssh address@hidden ls -l" the system/user profiles are not
> executed but .bashrc is executed.
> 
> In case I) when  the user logs on the system/user  profiles are executed. This
> is consistent with all the behavior presented so far.

That's because case I is really "slogin address@hidden".

> 
> But in the second case the things are very surprising:
> 
>     a) although the user is authenticated the system/user profiles are not
>        executed, and
> 
>     b) to  make the  things even  more confusing, although  the shell  is not
>        interactive .bashrc is executed.

In case II, what ends up actually being executed is `bash -c "ls -l"'. This
is how sshd invokes the shell to run the requested command.  It's not a
login shell, so no login shell startup files.  The fact that .bashrc is
read and executed is exactly what we're discussing here: it was added as
an optional feature due to user requests.


> 
> All this behavior is documented in the man pages of ssh and bash, but I simply
> cannot  understand  why  was  not  possibile   to  start  a  login  shell  and
> consequently to have bash loading the system/user profiles instead of starting
> a non-interactive shell that loads .bashrc.  This is also in contrast with the
> purpose of  the .bashrc files that  must prepare the shell  for an interactive
> session (which does not occur in the case II).
> 
> Why the request of loading .bashrc and the impossibility of starting a
> login shell (when a login is performed)?

I explained, in my previous message, exactly why bash reads .bashrc when
it's invoked by ssh, and the reasons users requested it.

If you want sshd to start a login shell for every command that it receives,
you'll have to request that feature with the ssh developers.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    address@hidden    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/