r/bash

When working over ssh, I sometimes want to reboot or power off a system. The usual error message about the broken pipe annoy me, so I use

sudo reboot; logout as a stop for it. The interesting issue is that it doesn't work on all systems. A sixth gen Intel NUC works, but on an 11th gen Intel CPU I get the same errors as if I didn't issue the logout:

Broadcast message from root@NUC11TNKi3 on pts/1 (Thu 2026-05-21 11:38:21 CEST):

The system will power off now!

Read from remote host nuc11tnki3.lan: Connection reset by peer
Connection to nuc11tnki3.lan closed.
client_loop: send disconnect: Broken pipe

On a 10th gen Intel NUC, it's no issue:

sudo reboot; logout

Broadcast message from root@nuc10i3fnk on pts/2 (Thu 2026-05-21 11:58:15 CEST):

The system will reboot now!

Connection to nuc10i3fnk.lan closed.

It should have something to do with the timing (that's why I post it in /r/bash), but I can't identify why only some systems show it. I use it on some fast systems and on slow systems without problems. Bash version is 5.3.9 in case it plays a role. But I have used other systems with other bash versions as well.

I want to add a cronjob entry programmatically through the script instead to manually adding the entry in crontab -e.

Suppose, i have a script that runs to check for ram usage, and I want to add a cronjob inside the same script and run it every 5 mins. Is it possible to do so?

Bash is great but I could never configure the command line writing experience to just how I like it.

So I've written a Bash plugin in rust that uses ratatui to provide a modern, smooth command line writing experience. This fills a similar gap to ble.sh but goes beyond what ble.sh offers.

With flyline, you get undo/redo support, tooltips, fuzzy auto completions, fuzzy history search, agent integration, mouse support, text selection, full prompt customization, and more!

And it all runs in the same process as Bash. See the readme on how to install it (no sudo required).

Let me know what you think!

Hey,

I have a small script to switch between projects. All my projects are in a deeply nested directory that is equal to their upstream source (eg. ~/projects/github.com/junegunn/fzf/).

It works by using find to enumerate all directories under ~/projects/ that contain a .git/ directory and passes that to fzf. Unfortunately this is pretty slow somehow because findtakes a long time. When using fzf directly it's super fast, but I can't restrict the selection to only include git root directories.

Is there a better way of getting a similar result? All I want is to have a fast way of switching between projects

dev () {
    project="$(find $HOME/projects -type d -name .git -prune -exec sh -c 'dirname $(realpath --relative-to $HOME/projects {})' \; 2>/dev/null | fzf -1)" 
    if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]
    then
        return $?
    fi
    projectDir="$HOME/projects/$project" 
    pushd $projectDir
}

For those of you who also write scripts in Python or another language besides Bash, How do you decide when to write a script in Python vs. a script in Bash? I'm trying to be economical with my study time, because if I spend a lot of time learning some limited use functionality in one language, I could have used that time to learn a more general use functionality in another language. Here's an example: I've spent a fair amount of time learning awk, but I've never been great at using it, and sometimes I think that I should have just used Path and regex objects in Python, instead.

Edit: Another example is using sed instead of using a regex substitution in python. I've never really gotten comfortable with sed, just like I've never really gotten comfortable with awk--despite spending a fair amount of time trying to learn each.

SOLVED

Solution:

Add these lines to "~/.profile":

if [  "$SHELL" == "/bin/sh" -a -x /bin/bash ]; then
    export SHELL=/bin/bash
    exec /bin/bash --login
fi

if [ "$BASH" ] ; then source ~/.bashrc ; fi

Create file "~/.bashrc" if it doesn't exist

Add these lines to "~/.bashrc":

HISTFILE=~/.bash_history

Run commands:

source ~/.bashrc
source ~/.profile

Restart NAS

==================================

Hello. I'm using a Synology NAS, and I'm trying to make it so my bash commands history stays there even after restarts or updates. Currently, the bash commands history gets cleared when the system restarts.

I read that running "bash --login" can create the ".bashrc" and ".bash_history" files, so I ran it on the NAS via SSH with my user, but it didn't create the files.

When I run "echo $HISTFILE", it returns "/var/tmp/.bash_history", but running "ls -ap /var/tmp/" doesn't show a ".bash_history" anywhere in that directory. Plus, the "/var/tmp/" directory gets cleared everytime the system restarts, so if it actually is there somehow, then it's a bad place for it to be anyway.

I also read that "/etc.defaults/" has a ".bashrc_profile" file that stays there even after the system restarts and updates, although I'm not sure how I'm supposed to use that info at the moment.

How do I create the ".bashrc" and ".bash_history" files, and have them stay on the system after restarting and updating?

I was wondering if i could sync the background image of my terminal(Terminator aka x-terminal-emulator) with the current desktop wallpaper and i got to the point of having a bashrc alias that updates the config file's specific line where the background image path resides,but it presents these problems:

• Manual Input:I must input the alias twice to change the terminator background image to the current desktop wallpaper
• Turning off and on:The alias also closes and opens new terminator instances,making the split view layout reset everytime i want to manually change it and the change less seamless.

Idea:

• Theres a specific command to monitor changes in all settings,like window border theme,desktop wallpaper image,desktop wallpaper resize mode,etc etc.Now, could a bg job be searching for any wallpaper changes and act upon that?
• How would it close and open terminator?Is there a way to avoid this?

Can anyone clearly explain the real-world usage of `/etc/profile`, `/etc/profile.d/`, and `/etc/bashrc` in Linux?

I’m getting confused between different explanations from ChatGPT and Gemini regarding login shells, non-login shells, interactive shells, and non-interactive shells.

From what I understood:

* `.bashrc` is mainly for interactive shell settings like aliases, prompts, etc. * `/etc/profile` and `/etc/profile.d/*.sh` are usually used for global environment variables like `PATH`, `JAVA_HOME`, `ORACLE_HOME`, etc.

But here is where I’m confused:

Some explanations say we should configure application paths and environment variables in `/etc/profile.d/` because they are needed system-wide.

But others say non-interactive or non-login shells (like cron jobs or scripts) do not automatically load `/etc/profile` or `.bashrc` at all.

So my doubts are:

1. What is the actual real-world purpose of: * `/etc/profile` * `/etc/profile.d/` * `/etc/bashrc` * `.bash_profile` * `.bashrc`
2. In enterprise environments, where should things like: * `PATH` * `JAVA_HOME` * aliases * prompt customization actually be configured?
3. If cron jobs/scripts/services don’t automatically load these files, then why is `/etc/profile.d/java.sh` considered standard practice for Java setup?
4. How do Linux admins usually handle environments for: * SSH users * cron jobs * systemd services * automation scripts

I’m trying to understand the practical production usage rather than only textbook explanations.

Trying to find a way to have wget check (maybe in the background?) the size of a website before I attempt to archive it. So if I wanted to run wget -m -k https://example-web.site, I want a script that'll guesstimate how much space it'll take. I found this, with this as the main script; dunno why you'd install the script when you can just copy-paste it into an executable file, but maybe I'm missing something.

So I was about to do that, when I came across this:

> ...--spider option i think unexpectedly deletes all files on disk and so my download of many Gigabytes and thousands of files was being accidentally deleted by this feature. so i run the command in a temporary directory to stop this behavior from accidently deleting files.

And now I'm petrified. Please advise!

I’m thinking seriously about switching to Linux. My idea is to first learn Bash scripting, try making some simple scripts, and at the same time start learning more about Linux distros and how the system works.

I feel like learning Bash first could help me understand Linux better instead of just using it casually.

What’s the best way to learn Bash scripting as a beginner?