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I'm curious if there's a way to get my .bash_profile to work when I sudo a program.

For example, I have it set to alias emerge='emerge -av' so that I can install software, and it will always ask me if I want to proceed before downloading and installing. However I just noticed when I sudo emerge foo, it defaults to just the plain command emerge foo instead of emerge -av foo.

Only thing that comes to mind to fix this is to also put the alias in root's .bash_profile, but I don't want to have to resort to that since I will always have to make changes in two places when I want to add stuff to my own profile.

Is there another way around this that I'm unfamiliar with?

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  • I tried putting aliases in root's profile, and they don't work.
    – Oscar Goldman
    Jul 27, 2013 at 11:59

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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In bash,

alias sudo='sudo '

will cause bash to expand any aliases that come after sudo.

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    Please can you explain why this works?
    – fmanco
    Jun 26, 2012 at 0:35
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    It's simply part of how bash expands aliases. From the bash manpage: "If the last character of the alias value is a blank, then the next command word following the alias is also checked for alias expansion."
    – Gordon Davisson
    Jun 26, 2012 at 2:17
  • Any idea why this doesn't work in combination with: stackoverflow.com/a/19739018/520061 or how to make it work?
    – Sebastian Blask
    Jul 24, 2014 at 13:20
  • @SebastianBlask: Because you basically end up running sudo function _foo() { ...; }; _foo – that is, trying to invoke bash built-in syntax via sudo. Regarding how to make it work, all I can say about that answer by osirisgothra is: 1) themonolith.com/wp-content/uploads/why-would-you-do-that.jpg 2) no, seriously, what is the damn point in defining a function inside an alias, rather than just using a function? 3) unfortunately, you can't call functions with sudo, so I recommend putting their content in a shell script.
    – u1686_grawity
    Jul 24, 2014 at 15:20
  • @grawity so just like sudo cd doesn't work? The point is being able to use sudo with the same commands I can use as a normal user. I figured I could make it a shell script, but then I have to type the whole path with sudo, which I don't have to do with my normal user, but well, if it's just not possible...
    – Sebastian Blask
    Jul 24, 2014 at 15:25
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The other way to do it (although in this particular instance I recommend Grawity's answer) would be to use the -E flag to sudo to inherit the environment.

   -E          The -E (preserve environment) option will override the
               env_reset option in sudoers(5)).  It is only available when
               either the matching command has the SETENV tag or the
               setenv option is set in sudoers(5).
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