UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello

By default for root the login shell is /bin/sh. In the file /etc/passwd I changed it to /bin/bash. (/bin/bash does exists!) After I logged out and in again I still have /bin/sh as the shell and not /bin/bash. Are the more files to be edited? I am using SCO-Unix.

I am thankfull for any tipps and information.

Thanks
Marcus

What do you get when you type...

env | grep SHELL

...you should see somthing like...

SHELL=/bin/bash

...if not, verify that SHELL is not
being set in root's .profile (or something).

Usually if the login shell cannot be found (eg. /bin/noshell) then the account will not be logged in. Check to see that /bin/bash is not just a link to /bin/sh. You might want to type /bin/bash when you login to see if that changes the shell, if not then you really don't have bash.

That is what I do normally. The first thing is to start bash. So it does exists.

After I changed the passwd file (/bin/sh to /bin/bash) I logged in and issued the command env | grep SHELL. The output I got was SHELL=/bin/sh. Now, rwb10959 adviced me to look in .profile or something. The only file for the sh-Shell is .sh_history in my home-directory.

Marcus

A couple more things to look at...

Check to see if SHELL is being set in
/etc/profile or /etc/defaults/profile (not sure if SCO has this)

Also, check to see if you have a /etc/shells file.
Normally, this file is used to tell the system what the
"valid" shells are for that system. If /bin/bash is not listed,
you will have to add it in. Again, I'm not sure SCO has this.

Worst case, you should be able to add the line

exec /bin/bash -l

...to root's .profile file. This will change your execution
environment to bash and run it as a login (-l) shell.
This way, you can have a .bash_profile file that will be sourced.