Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Special Files

Bash reads one or more startup files. Some of the files are read only when a shell is a login shell.

The startup files are, in the order they are read:

1. /etc/profile. Executed automatically at login.

2. The first file found from this list: ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile. Executed automatically at login.

3. ~/.bashrc is read by every shell, after the login files. However, if invoked as sh, Bash instead reads $ENV.

The getpwnam ( ) and getpwuid ( ) functions are the sources of home directories for ~name abbreviations. (On single-user systems, the user database is stored in /etc/passwd. However on networked systems, this information may come from NIS, NIS+, or LDAP—not your workstation password file.)