Why are scripts in /etc/profile.d/ being ignored (system-wide bash aliases)?

Question

I'm new to Ubuntu. I'm running 13.10 Desktop.

I wanted to set some system wide aliases and a custom prompt for bash. I found this article:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables

Following the advice in this article, I created /etc/profile.d/profile_local.sh. It is owned by root and has permissions of 644 just like the other scripts there:

root@ubuntu:/etc/profile.d# ll
total 28
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mar 23 08:56 .
drwxr-xr-x 135 root root 12288 Mar 23 09:15 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   660 Oct 23  2012 bash_completion.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  3317 Mar 23 07:36 profile_local.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1947 Nov 23 00:57 vte.sh

I have further confirmed that /etc/profile calls /etc/profile.d. It contains this code block:

if [ -d /etc/profile.d ]; then
  for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if [ -r $i ]; then
      . $i
    fi
  done
  unset i
fi

Upon login, it does not appear that the custom script, profile_local.sh I created gets sourced. However if after login I 'source /etc.profile.d/profile_local.sh', I get the expected behavior, my custom aliases, and custom prompt.

What am I doing wrong?

Contents of script 'profile_local.sh':

# 3/23/14 - Copied from Gentoo /etc/bash/bashrc
# Placed in /etc/profile.d as described at:
# https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables
This file is sourced by all interactive bash shells on startup,
including some apparently interactive shells such as scp and rcp
that can't tolerate any output.  So make sure this doesn't display
anything or bad things will happen !
Test for an interactive shell.  There is no need to set anything
past this point for scp and rcp, and it's important to refrain from
outputting anything in those cases.
if [[ $- != i ]] ; then
        # Shell is non-interactive.  Be done now!
        return
fi
Bash won't get SIGWINCH if another process is in the foreground.
Enable checkwinsize so that bash will check the terminal size when
it regains control.  #65623
http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/bash/FAQ (E11)
shopt -s checkwinsize
Enable history appending instead of overwriting.  #139609
shopt -s histappend
Change the window title of X terminals
case ${TERM} in
        xterm|rxvt|Eterm|aterm|kterm|gnome|interix)
                PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007"'
                ;;
        screen)
                PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033_${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\033\"'
                ;;
esac
use_color=false
Set colorful PS1 only on colorful terminals.
dircolors --print-database uses its own built-in database
instead of using /etc/DIR_COLORS.  Try to use the external file
first to take advantage of user additions.  Use internal bash
globbing instead of external grep binary.
safe_term=${TERM//[^[:alnum:]]/?}   # sanitize TERM
match_lhs=""
[[ -f ~/.dir_colors   ]] && match_lhs="${match_lhs}$(<~/.dir_colors)"
[[ -f /etc/DIR_COLORS ]] && match_lhs="${match_lhs}$(</etc/DIR_COLORS)"
[[ -z ${match_lhs}    ]] 

        && type -P dircolors >/dev/null 

        && match_lhs=$(dircolors --print-database)
[[ $'\n'${match_lhs} == $'\n'"TERM "${safe_term} ]] && use_color=true
if ${use_color} ; then
        # Enable colors for ls, etc.  Prefer ~/.dir_colors #64489
        if type -P dircolors >/dev/null ; then
                if [[ -f ~/.dir_colors ]] ; then
                        eval $(dircolors -b ~/.dir_colors)
                elif [[ -f /etc/DIR_COLORS ]] ; then
                        eval $(dircolors -b /etc/DIR_COLORS)
                fi
        fi
    if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]] ; then
            PS1='\[\033[01;31m\]\h\[\033[01;34m\] \W \$\[\033[00m\] '
    else
            PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[01;34m\] \w \$\[\033[00m\] '
    fi

    alias ls='ls --color=auto'
    alias grep='grep --colour=auto'

else
        if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]] ; then
                # show root@ when we don't have colors
                PS1='\u@\h \W $ '
        else
                PS1='\u@\h \w $ '
        fi
fi
Try to keep environment pollution down, EPA loves us.
unset use_color safe_term match_lhs
TZ="PST8PDT"
alias ll='ls -la'
alias dig='dig +search'
alias dir='ls -ba'
alias edit="ee"
alias ss="ps -aux"
alias dot='ls .[a-zA-Z0-9_]*'
alias news="xterm -g 80x45 -e trn -e -S1 -N &"
alias more="less"
alias c="clear"
alias m="more"
alias j="jobs"
common misspellings
alias mroe=more
alias pdw=pwd

Answer 1

To understand what's going on here, you need to understand a little background information about how shells (bash in this case) are run.

• When you open a terminal emulator (gnome-terminal for example), you are executing what is known as an interactive, non-login shell.

• When you log into your machine from the command line, via ssh, or run a command such as su - username, you are running an interactive login shell.

• When you log in graphically, you are running something completely different, the details will depend on your system and graphical environment but in general it is the graphical shell that deals with your login. While many graphical shells (including the Ubuntu default) will read /etc/profile not all of them do.

• Finally, when you run a shell script, it is run in a non-interactive, non-login shell.

Now, the files that bash will read when launched depend on the type of shell it is running as. The following is an excerpt of the INVOCATION section of man bash (emphasis mine):

When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior.

When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, bash reads and executes commands from /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc, if these files exist. This may be inhibited by using the --norc option. The --rcfile file option will force bash to read and execute commands from file instead of /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc.

What all this means is that you are editing the wrong file. You can test this by dropping to a virtual console using Ctrl+Alt+F2 (return to the GUI with Alt+F7, or F8 depending on your setup) and logging in there. You will see that your prompt and aliases are available.

So, in order to have the setting you want applied to non-login shells, the type you get each time you open a terminal, you should make your changes to ~/.bashrc instead. Alternatively, you can also place your aliases in the file ~/.bash_aliases (however, note that this is an Ubuntu feature and you should not expect it to work on other distributions).

For more details on which file should be used for what, see here.

---

NOTES:

• Debian (and by extension Ubuntu) also has the default ~/.profile source ~/.bashrc. This means that any changes you make to ~/.bashrc will also be inherited by login shells but i) this is not the case in all Linux/Unix machines and ii) the inverse is not true which is why you should generally always work with ~/.bashrc &co rather than ~/.profile or /etc/profile.

• Also, a general note on usage, changes made to the configuration files in /etc will affect all users. This is usually not what you want to do and should be avoided. You should always use the equivalent files in your home directory (~/).

• The various configuration files are read sequentially. Specifically, for login shells, the order is:

  /etc/profile -> /etc/profile.d/* (in alphabetical order) -> ~/.bash_profile -> ~/.bash_login -> ~/.profile
  

  This means that any setting in ~/.profile will overwrite anything set in the previous files.

Answer 2

in Debian for Terminal session I solved this problem for all user so:

added to

sudo nano /etc/bash.bashrc

block

if [ -d /etc/profile.d ]; then
  for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if [ -r $i ]; then
      . $i
    fi
  done
  unset i
fi

from

/etc/profile

Answer 3

Follow this path:

• Open Edit -> Preferences
• In the first tab "General", under label "Command", enable "Run command as login shell"

Answer 4

Another possibility, especially for settings like the history settings HISTSIZE, HISTFILESIZE, HISTCONTROL, and PS1 is that the files are being loaded, but settings are overwritten in another file that is source later, with the most likely culprit being ~/.bashrc. (I have a default set of settings for our servers, like a prompt that is red for root to warn the user and large histories with timestamps)

The default Ubuntu .bashrc from /etc/skel sets several settings, which might have made sense to set from somewhere where it would not override settings set by the system owner from /etc/profile.d (Like /etc/bash.bashrc) (If a user edits their .bashrc, it is fine to overwrite settings, the system default files are more annoying)

Answer 5

VERSION="16.04.3 LTS (Xenial Xerus)"

Okay so everyone has assumed that the person here doesn't want /etc/profile.d/somefile.sh for all users, but in my case that's exactly what I wanted.

So actually as it turns out with Ubuntu if you use this and you want it to take effect in your graphical shell, all you have to do is set the file and then logout and back in again. All your consoles or anything you launch whether it be xterm type or console type (Or dropping to the shell) will now have that file sourced.

No need to use .bashrc etc for all users. Sorry this just wasn't clear in above answer. Everything they said is true but in reality its mostly not true as everything the windows manager launches will inherit these settings so just re-login and solve your issue and don't bother with .bashrc etc if your intention is to apply it to all users.