.bashrc not sourced in iTerm + Mac OS X

Question

I am using iTerm in Mac OS X 10.6. It seems when i open iTerm, neither .bashrc nor .bash_profile is sourced. I can tell because the aliases defined in .bashrc don't work. How to fix?

Answer 1

Bash will source EITHER .bash_profile or .bashrc, depending upon how it is called. If it is a login shell, Bash looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile, in that order, and sources the first one it finds (and only that one). If it is not a login shell but is interactive (like most terminal sessions), Bash will source ~/.bashrc.

Likely, iTerm is looking for ~/.bashrc. If it's configured to start as a login shell, it will look for ~/.bash_profile. It's almost certainly an error within the config file rather than that the shell is not sourcing it.

I would put a line at the beginning of each file. At the top of ~/.bash_profile:

export BASH_CONF="bash_profile"

And at the top of ~/.bashrc:

export BASH_CONF="bashrc"

Then, open a new iTerm and type

$ echo $BASH_CONF

That should confirm the file is being sourced and you can look into the syntax of the file.

Answer 2

Put your alias definitions in the bash profile file, you have to create the file but it will be sourced automatically. I create a separate file called alias.configuration and source it in .bash_profile just because I have another user defined and want to have the same alias set.

Answer 3

On my 10.6 machine ~/.profile is sourced. So a source .bashrc entry in ~/.profile should do the job.

Answer 4

In iTerm2, ensure you're using "login shell" instead of a custom command including "login", which doesn't do what you expect.

Answer 5

In iTerm2, none of these solutions worked for me. I was able to get it to properly read my .bashrc file by adding the command

source ~/.bashrc 

to the Send text at start: field in Settings/General for my iTerm profile.

Answer 6

Add

set -x

to the beginning of /etc/profile. This gives you a line-by-line account of everything that gets executed when bash starts up, including files sourced from within /etc/profile, ~/.bash_profile, etc. It's a bit daunting if you don't understand bash scripting very well, but you may be able to see if there is an error in a start-up file, and the output will be useful for someone proficient in bash to help you locate your problem.

You can remove the set -x line when you're finished troubleshooting.