[CentOS] root .bash_profile?

Pete Biggs
2019-05-13T18:46:52Z

> ~/.bash_profile
>               The personal initialization file, executed for login shells
>
> First, the ~ which might not apply to root.

Why do you think that?  '~' is just shell shorthand for user's home
directory.

>  Second, it?s a ?personal? init file, which also might not pertain to
> root.

root is just as much a user as anyone else, albeit one with special
privileges because they are UID 0.

> Going from user to root (su) might not initiate a login shell.  I?m
> not clear on this.

Are you logging in? (i.e. typing the username and password at a login
prompt.)  If not, then it's not a login shell.

>
> But, .bash_profile is not loading.
>
> I have my aliases in another file called /root/.bash_aliases, which
> is a duplicate of my /home/myuser/.bash_aliases which is NOW sourced
> in my /root/.bashrc so it now works.
>
> So ya, got it to work, but knowing the cascade of inclusions is
> important.  root is as important to me as my normal user.
>

Yes. If you are going to be playing around as root, then you really
should know the consequences of what you are doing.  When I started
using Unix 30mumble years ago, the perceived wisdom was *always* invoke
su as /bin/su, those where the days when '.' was frequently in a users
path and some nasty user might leave scripts called 'su' lying around
waiting for an admin to occidentally execute them.  Second, invoke it
as '/bin/su -', that way you clean out any user variables and only have
the environment you have setup for root.

P.