7.2.2. Shell setup files
When entering the ls -al command to get a long listing of all files, including the ones starting with a dot, in your home directory, you will see one or more files starting with a . and ending in rc . For the case of bash , this is .bashrc . This is the counterpart of the system-wide configuration file /etc/bashrc .
When logging into an interactive login shell, login will do the authentication, set the environment and start your shell. In the case of bash , the next step is reading the general profile from /etc , if that file exists. bash then looks for ~/.bash_profile , ~/.bash_login and ~/.profile , in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. If none exists, /etc/bashrc is applied.
When a login shell exits, bash reads and executes commands from the file ~/.bash_logout , if it exists.
This procedure is explained in detail in the login and bash man pages.
* License
