Linux

As part of the server migration we copied all the files and scripts except the .profile where we created a new .bash_profile file with new PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables on the Linux server.

Now my question is can i simply rename my .bash_profile to .profile? This is a simple switch considering the amount of work needed to identify and edit all the files and scripts where ever .profile is referenced and change it to .bash_profile.

Since you are using bash, I would say there is nothing more to do: It is pointless to copy your .bashrc on .profile ( since you will not be using sh or ksh...)

Why not use a link or even a hard link?

why not to source .bash_profile from the .profile file? That's just a simple change, although as vbe said i don't see the point in doing this either..
The script extension (.sh vs .ksh) doesn't matter in terms what shell interpeter is be used on a script. What matters is the the 'she-bang' specificication on the FIRST line of the a script. As in:
#!/usr/bin/ksh vs #!/usr/bin/bash.

Bash looks for ~/.bash_profile before ~/.profile and executes the first one it finds.
So the best thing to do in my opinion is:
1) put all definitions in ~/.profile
2) source ~/.profile in ~/.bash_profile

Thanks for your inputs. I think Rudy's approach sounds good to me. Also I will forward cero's approach to my teams and will decide on the next steps.

Thank you.

Sudheer

If you are not looking for a quick solution and discuss a new setup with your teams I'd like to suggest what works best for me:
For each application I have scripts to set up the environment variables, located in the filesystem that belongs to that application. In the user profiles I source the setup-scripts I need for that user.
This makes maintanance a lot simpler (especially when working with clusters).