# .bashrc not being sourced **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 26, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bashrc-not-being-sourced/13022 "2013-06-26T19:30:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shahar\_Kedar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Shahar\_Kedar](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Shahar_Kedar)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bashrc-not-being-sourced/13022/1 "2013-06-26T19:30:38Z")
Hi, I’m running a very simple ansible command: ansible staging -m shell -a ‘echo $PATH’ -c ssh I expect this command to return the same $PATH that’s printed when I run ‘echo $PATH’ when logging directly using SSH, however, this does not happen. The path I’m getting from ansible is that one set in /etc/environment and not the one set in .bashrc (which, to my best understanding should have been sourced) I feel that I’m missing something pretty basic here. Thanks, Shahar ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Wieers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/45deac/32.png) [@Dag\_Wieers](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dag_Wieers)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bashrc-not-being-sourced/13022/2 "2013-06-26T20:34:16Z")
When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interac-         tive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands         from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file,         it looks for ~/.bash\_profile, ~/.bash\_login, and ~/.profile, in that         order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and         is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the shell is started         to inhibit this behavior.         When a login shell exits, bash reads and executes commands from the files         ~/.bash\_logout and /etc/bash.bash\_logout, if the files exists.         When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, bash reads         and executes commands from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists. This may be         inhibited by using the --norc option. The --rcfile file option will force         bash to read and execute commands from file instead of ~/.bashrc.         When bash is started non-interactively, to run a shell script, for exam-         ple, it looks for the variable BASH\_ENV in the environment, expands its         value if it appears there, and uses the expanded value as the name of a         file to read and execute. Bash behaves as if the following command were         executed:                if [-n "$BASH\_ENV"]; then . "$BASH\_ENV"; fi         but the value of the PATH variable is not used to search for the file         name.         If bash is invoked with the name sh, it tries to mimic the startup behav-         ior of historical versions of sh as closely as possible, while conforming         to the POSIX standard as well. When invoked as an interactive login         shell, or a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first         attempts to read and execute commands from /etc/profile and ~/.profile, in         that order. The --noprofile option may be used to inhibit this behavior.         When invoked as an interactive shell with the name sh, bash looks for the         variable ENV, expands its value if it is defined, and uses the expanded         value as the name of a file to read and execute. Since a shell invoked as         sh does not attempt to read and execute commands from any other startup         files, the --rcfile option has no effect. A non-interactive shell invoked         with the name sh does not attempt to read any other startup files. When         invoked as sh, bash enters posix mode after the startup files are read. And I think this last paragraph is the most relevant here. Bash is in fact being invoked as /bin/sh and .bashrc is meant for very specific bash stuff. PATH is not something you would set for only bash, so it does not belong in .bashrc. And to prove my point:      [dag@moria ~]$ strace -f -e open /bin/sh      open("/etc/ld.so.cache", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/lib64/libtinfo.so.5", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/lib64/libdl.so.2", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/lib64/libc.so.6", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/dev/tty", O\_RDWR|O\_NONBLOCK) = 3      open("/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/proc/meminfo", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/etc/nsswitch.conf", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/etc/ld.so.cache", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/lib64/libnss\_files.so.2", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/etc/passwd", O\_RDONLY|O\_CLOEXEC) = 3      open("/usr/lib64/gconv/gconv-modules.cache", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/home/dag/.bash\_history", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm", O\_RDONLY) = 3      open("/home/dag/.inputrc", O\_RDONLY) = 3 Try the same thing with /bin/bash and you'll see the difference. What you can do though is invoke it like:      ansible staging -m shell -a 'echo $PATH executable=/bin/bash' -c ssh But in my opinion your PATH should not go into .bashrc or .bash\_profile ! ---
**Author:** ![Shahar\_Kedar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Shahar\_Kedar](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Shahar_Kedar)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bashrc-not-being-sourced/13022/3 "2013-06-26T21:02:47Z")
Hi Dag, I appreciate the answer. Adding executable=/bin/bash did not do the trick. What finally worked for me was sourcing the required shell file myself as follows: ansible staging -m shell -a ‘[[-s “$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm”]] && source “$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm” executable=/bin/bash’ Not the most elegant way to do things… I could change the path set in /etc/environment, but I’m not sure that would be the right thing to do. Why should all users, logging into the server, have Ruby in their PATH? That doesn’t seem right either. Where would you suggest setting the PATH so it’s isolated to a specific user and yet accessible from within any shell session? Thanks, Shahar ---
**Author:** ![Kavin\_Kankeshwar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/35a633/32.png) [@Kavin\_Kankeshwar](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kavin_Kankeshwar)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bashrc-not-being-sourced/13022/4 "2013-06-26T21:06:22Z")
What is your remote machine OS, Ubuntu/Debian ? If its Ubuntu you need to change defaults. Here is my playbook snippet. ```auto - name: Comment out line which prevents loading bash profile by ssh lineinfile: dest=~/.bashrc regexp='[-z "$PS1"] && return' line='# [-z "$PS1"] && return' state=present when_string: $ansible_pkg_mgr == 'apt' ``` Regards, ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bashrc-not-being-sourced/13022/5 "2013-06-26T21:33:44Z")
See what dag posted about .bashrc vs .bash\_profile