How do I change the default prompt from “#” to “>”?

Question

How can I change the default prompt in Linux (red-hat 5.4) from "#" to ">"? example

[root@moon11 root]# 

to

[root@moon11 root]> 

Answer 1

This is defined in your ~/.bashrc file in the variables PS1 and PS2. Find their values and change # to > . Take a look at bash variables and controlling the prompt.

EDIT:

In my ~/.bashrc file if I change

    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

to

    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\> '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\> '

it does the job.

Answer 2

My answer: Don't do it !

The fact root's prompt is by default # has a very useful side effect. It happens from time to time that people logged as root copy and paste what is on their screen by error. The default prompt makes that operation less risky by preventing the pasted commands to be executed again.

If you change your prompt to >, instead of commenting out the commands, that would run your prompt prefix as a command (likely a not found one) but redirect anyway its output to what used to be the command to execute, essentially blanking the file. Should you gave a file name that happens to be in the current directory (eg: passwd) or the full path of a sensitive binary and you are in serious trouble.

Answer 3

Keeping in mind the other answers' recommendation to avoid reducing root's visibility, here's a useful guide to bash prompt editing that a college associate made many years ago: Bash Prompt HowTo