UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I know this is probably a really stupid question, with a really stupidly simple answer.

So I've got a Mac, and I have to do a bunch of work via SSH on a Solaris workstation owned by my university.

I've already got keys set up, and my ~/.ssh/config file set up as follows:

Code:

Host prime
  HostName address.of.that.workstation
  User myusername

And so all I have to do to SSH into the box is type "ssh prime". I've even got a separate window setting in Terminal.app with a different background color that's set to run that command on startup; I've set Terminal.app to open one of those windows in a second tab when I start it.

The only problem is, when I ssh into the box (or log into it physically, come to think of it) I get csh.

And I want bash. Not because of anything regarding scripts or anything - I am a complete noob - but because of the arrow keys. (If I have to use a command line argument, I'm OK with that; I mainly want to be able to invoke bash automatically when I open the aforementioned window setting. Right now, it's really annoying when I ssh in, then forget to start bash and end up with arrow-key control characters all over the screen.)

I've tried "chsh", but as I mentioned earlier, it's a Solaris box.
I've tried "passwd -e" and even, in a futile attempt, "usermod -s" but, as you can expect, nada. (Did I mention the workstation is owned by my university?)
I'd try contacting the sysadmin, but I don't even know for sure who that is, and I can guess how much good will come out of it.
I'd try editing my ~/.profile and ~/.login files, but both of them have huge comment blocks at the top that say "DO NOT PUT ANY COMMANDS IN THIS FILE THAT CHANGE THE SHELL THAT YOU RUN. IF YOU DO, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG ONTO A WORKSTATION." This scares me.

Any ideas?

Does your sun host even have bash?

You can force a shell like this without having to put it in .profile, if your host has it:

Code:

ssh -t username@host exec /bin/bash

If they don't have bash, they should at least have ksh, which can be made to act somewhat more intelligently/familiarly with set -o emacs.

Thanks! That worked perfectly.

Yes, they do have bash, they just force us to use csh as a login shell for some reason. Seriously.

You can also add these lines at the end of your .login file:

Code:

echo -n "Switch to bash ? [y]/n "
set answer = $< 
switch ($answer)
    case [nN]:
      echo "Staying in csh"
      breaksw
    default:
      exec /bin/bash
      breaksw
endsw

I stealth-edited while you were writing Sorry

Better to handle it on his end if he can IMHO, if their login requirements really are that strict anywhere.

So did I

But I had the sense to quote you first. Mwahahah.