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Re: /etc/profile always does a "cd $HOME"
- From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>
- To: Sven Köhler <skoehler at upb dot de>
- Cc: cygwin at cygwin dot com
- Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 19:32:35 -0400 (EDT)
- Subject: Re: /etc/profile always does a "cd $HOME"
- References: <d6qm36$var$1@sea.gmane.org>
- Reply-to: cygwin at cygwin dot com
On Sun, 22 May 2005, Sven Köhler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> i'd like to use cygwin from a normal windows-app. The problem is, that i
> need a login-shell, so that all environment-vars are properly set. The
> problem: bash -li always changes the current workdir!
>
> IMHO, executing "bash -li" shouldn't change the workdir.
> No other system i know does that. Script may rely on that behaviour.
>
> /etc/profile contains the like
> cd "$HOME"
>
> That line cannot easily be removed. Starting the Cygwin-Link installed
> by the setup wouldn't cd to ~ anymore. This behaviours is liked by most
> users i guess (including my own).
>
> Any suggestions, how the situation could be improved?
Yes, you're correct in that on many Linux systems /etc/profile doesn't
change the working directory. The directory is changed to $HOME by the
login process.
One possibility is adding a Cygwin-specific option to login(1) that would
log in as the current user without requiring the username to be specified
at the command line, to avoid local/domain username conflicts (e.g.,
"login -l") and skip printing the motd (as if .hushlogin is found). If I
understand the security implications correctly, any user can log in as
herself without a password (using, for example, "login -f"). Then
cygwin.bat can be changed to use "login -lpf" instead of "bash -li".
This would simplify scripts like 'chere'. It would also have the
advantage of using the users' favorite shell from /etc/passwd in console
logins. Now, <http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#SHTDI>.
Igor
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