What Does Your Command Prompt Look Like?

rogain writes: "Show your commandline coolness and post your ubergeek .profile Donate a clue to the newbie hordes amazed that you can even change the command prompt! A nerdly sort of show-me-yours and I'll-show-you-mine kind of thing." I've attached mine below, but its kinda boring. I'm looking forward to seeing someone come up with a cooler one!

Here's mine:
PS1="$E\033]2;\h:\u:\w\007\033]1;\h\007$R$E$REDBLK$R\u$E$PPLBLK$R@$E$REDBLK$R\h$E$NONE$R\w>"

Comments

you nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

get a life

Re:Root prompt

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not run this command - it tries to change the permissions of your /etc directory (no, it did not succeed with me).

Re:prompt

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm... too much C++ and ZeroWing will do this to you...
set prompt='All your argv[]s are belong to us: '

Mine: Lots of info, lots of colors. Link to code

[Erich]

Because of the lameness filter, I have put my prompt code here That's Date in red, number of messages in my mail spool file in brighter red, current umask in red, current username and active group name in blue, current path in green, hostname in bright green, current command history number, and exit status of the previous command. It's pretty sick. But it provides lots of information.

Color is good.

[Mike Hicks]

Hmm, in trying to post this, I came across a `lameness filter'. Probably a good idea in most situations, but this post contains a lot of the `junk characters' that it's complaining about. Maybe I just need to fill up some space with real words to offset whatever algorithm you guys are using to determine what shouldn't be posted.

Also, there's the bashish theme engine thingy that some people should look at. I've seen some really amazing prompts (well, sort of -- they don't always work).

In my /etc/bashrc:


[ -f /etc/jjcolors ] && . /etc/jjcolors
if [ "$EUID" = "0" ]; then
PS1="$BRIGHT$BLUE[$RED\u$WHITE@\h$BLUE][$YELLOW\ w$ BLUE]$RED\\$ $NORMAL"
else
PS1="$BRIGHT$BLUE[$CYAN\u$WHITE@\h$BLUE][$YELLOW \w $BLUE]$CYAN\\$ $NORMAL"
fi
[ -f /etc/jjcolors ] && . /etc/jjcolors unset


In my /etc/jjcolors:


if [ "$1" = "unset" ];
then
{
#
# unset all:
#
unset BLACK RED GREEN YELLOW BLUE MAGENTA CYAN WHITE
unset BGBLACK BGRED BGGREEN BGYELLOW BGBLUE BGMAGENTA BGCYAN BGWHITE
unset BRIGHT NORMAL REVERSE BLINK UNDERSCORE
}
else
{
#
# foreground colors:
#
BLACK='\[\033[30m\]'
RED='\[\033[31m\]'
GREEN='\[\033[32m\]'
YELLOW='\[\033[33m\]'
BLUE='\[\033[34m\]'
MAGENTA='\[\033[35m\]'
CYAN='\[\033[36m\]'
WHITE='\[\033[37m\]'

#
# background colors:
#
BGBLACK='\[\033[40m\]'
BGRED='\[\033[41m\]'
BGGREEN='\[\033[42m\]'
BGYELLOW='\[\033[43m\]'
BGBLUE='\[\033[44m\]'
BGMAGENTA='\[\033[45m\]'
BGCYAN='\[\033[46m\]'
BGWHITE='\[\033[47m\]'

#
# attributes:
#
BRIGHT='\[\033[01m\]'
NORMAL='\[\033[00m\]'
REVERSE='\[\033[07m\]'
BLINK='\[\033[05m\]' # doesn't work in xterms
UNDERSCORE='\[\033[04m\]' # only works in xterms

# zzzzzz='\[\033[00m\]' # last env var
}
fi

--

Re:Color is good.

[Mike Hicks]

Heh, it's there. Slashdot's comment system just divided it into chunks, to prevent people from putting really long lines in and screwing up the tables.

There should only be a single space in the prompt, between '\\$' and '$NORMAL'
--

VGA lines without vga font

[Mike Hicks]

It occurs to me that the linux console and most xterms can switch in and out of a pseudo-vga mode where they can draw line characters to the screen using a standard iso8859-1 font. That's how `make menuconfig' and other menu-driven programs get line characters on the screen.

To go into and out of this mode, use these:


LINE='\[\016\]'
UNLINE='\[\017\]'


The letters `jklmnqtuvwx' correspond to different line characters when in this mode (well, single-line chars, at least).
--

I like mine chock full of goodness!

[jandrese]

I use zsh, and I rather like having all of the information I need right on the command prompt. Many things only appear if they are needed (return values from programs for instance) and the prompt string avoids getting too long to leave me room to work my magic:
%(!.%B#%b.)<%m/%l> %(?.%{%}.%B%?%b )(%h %B%(4c,.../%3c,%~)%b)%B:%b

An average prompt looks like:
<escaflowne/p7> (128 ~):
A more interesting one:
#<escaflowne/p7> 5 (2 .../X11R6/share/xmame):

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.

Re:I like mine chock full of goodness!

[jandrese]

Oh yeah, this is at home. At work in the lab I make a slight modification:
(int the .zshrc)
HOSTTYPE=`uname`
prompt="%(!.%B#%b.)<%m/$HOSTTYPE/%l> %(?.%{%}.%B%?%b )(%h %B%(4c,.../%3c,%~)%b)% B:%b "

I did this because I was constantly forgetting what type of machine I was on, especially with the dual booters and the machines that changed OS all the time. Unfortunatly it make the prompt string a little longer than I normally like, but at least I didn't run killall on the Suns.

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.

Re:prompt

[jbuhler]

I get strange looks from my friends for this one:

setenv HOSTNAME `hostname | sed 's/\..*//' | tr \[a-z] \[A-Z]`
set prompt = "C:\\"{$HOSTNAME}"> "

(I switch between machines a lot, so it makes sense to use the hostname rather than the directory name.) However, it gets worse... I once knew a former mainframe guru whose UNIX prompt was configured to look like VM/CMS.

Re:this is just absurd

[Have Blue]

Note that that is the FIRST tutorial. What was the first program you ever wrote? Hello world?

And you must admit it's a hell of a lot better than the kid trying to get started by cracking sites and turning into a script kiddie.

My prompt (yes this is really old)

[Have Blue]

C:\> C:\spot> C:\spot>run run spot run!

Re:I good trick to play

[Paul Komarek]

This isn't really funny. I bet you're the type that watches America's Funniest Home Videos hoping to see someone get hurt.

-Paul Komarek

Re:KSH Prompt?

[Dom2]

Ksh will expand environment variables when it diplays, so you can do:

PS1='$PWD$ '

(Note the single quotes)

-Dom

CVS for your init files - and a project idea

[Bryan Ischo]

I can't post my .profile since I don't have one (I use .bashrc, etc), but it's not that interesting anyway ... the only interesting thing about it is that it's split up into a .bashrc (and .bash_login, etc) and .bashrc.local (and .bash_login.local, etc). The .local files are for local system settings, the rest are "generic" settings that should work under any *nix.

The non-.local files are managed by CVS; my CVS repository is out there on the 'net on my private server, so from any 'net-connected *nix system with CVS, I can just CVS checkout my init files. Also whenever I change something on one system I can check it in and then update it on the other systems when I get to them.

I even had the idea once of making this a sort of public service - setting up some simple scripts and programs as glue for managing the CVS side of things, and then putting a public CVS server up on the 'net just to allow people to check in their init files. Then someone could easily use this service to keep all of their init files up-to-date and consistent on every system they use.

Actually, I am slowly working on some new OS ideas and one of my ideas is exactly this - a public (secure) repository for user configuration info so that whenever a user of the OS goes anywhere, their preferences can easily follow them.

If anyone else wants to take this idea and run with it, be my guest.

I good trick to play

[smartin]

Change someone elses prompt to "". Drives them crazy
until they figure it out.

Re:I good trick to play

[Tet]

rm -- -rf

This only works with the rm in GNU fileutils. Traditional Unix rm mostly used

rm - -rf

Even that didn't work on all versions of Unix. The only way to be sure was to provide a path to the file:

rm ./-rf

Re:I good trick to play

[Tet]

Change someone elses prompt to "". Drives them crazy until they figure it out.

You can normally only do this if you have root access, or if they're careless enough to leave themselves logged on. If it's the latter, a favourite trick at University used to be to create a file called "*" in their home directory. The number of people that just did rm * to get rid of it is quite astonishing...

Re:I good trick to play

[PD]

If they leave their system for just a minute, first send an e-mail to everyone in the company saying "This is Joe's computer. Joe left me logged in. Joe shouldn't have done that."

Then, type echo "echo sleep 1 >> .profile" >> .profile

Damn this system is getting slower every time I log in!

Re:I good trick to play

[cyberdonny]

Even better: also create a file named -rf to go along with it. Ironically, the -rf file will be the only one that won't be wiped...

Re:I good trick to play

[cybermage]

Oh, well if you've got users to torture, try aliasing some common commands on them, like this:

alias rm echo "Sorry, but No! Request sent to your boss"
alias mv echo "Won't budge, press any key to delete."

Re:I good trick to play

[rdejean]

my favorite is to change their prompt to: PS1="Login incorrect\n\nlogin: "

Re:I good trick to play

[Technician]

I always liked "DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR SYSTEM HALTED"

Guess how many times they rebooted before they found out nothing was wrong.

Re:I good trick to play

[American AC in Paris]

Change someone elses prompt to "". Drives them crazy until they figure it out.

Heh. Reminds me of the time that my best friend changed my cell phone banner to say, " *Ringer Off* ". You can imagine my frustration (and his amusement...)

Re:I good trick to play

[infinite9]

I once opened a bunch of questionable programs and MS word documents on a friend's machine. Filled the screen. Then I copied the screen to the clipboard and saved it as a bitmap through paint. Then I set the wallpaper to that bitmap. He had a hell of a time trying to close all those windows. :-)

Just the basics

[Chacham]

PS1='\w>'

---
ticks = jiffies;
while (ticks == jiffies);
ticks = jiffies;

Something like this

[Chacham]

select user_id, lower(username) user_name from user_users where username = user; select lower(substr(global_name,1,(instr(global_name,'.', 1,1)-1))) db_name from global_name; rem set the prompt set sqlprompt "&db_name::&user_name> "

---
ticks = jiffies;
while (ticks == jiffies);
ticks = jiffies;

My bash prompt.

[j.e.hahn]

Here's how I set it in /etc/profile on all my boxen:

case $USER in
root)
PS1="(\# \u \h \w)\n>> "
;;
*)
PS1="(\# \u \h \w)\n> "
;;
esac
export PS1

This means that my prompt looks like this if I'm a user:

(1 jeh myhost /home/jeh/foo/bar/bletch)
>

and as root

(1 root myhost /usr/local/lib/perl/5.6.1)
>>

So I can tell at a glance exactly who and where I am, and still have nearly a full screen width for commandline editing.

Re:See my post on The Other Site

[Phil Gregory]

Ok, since this post actually elicited email response (which the Kuro5hin one didn't), I've put up a description of my prompt at http://www.geeksimplex.org/phil/prompt/. Enjoy.

--Phil (Yep, I'm replying to one of my own posts.)

See my post on The Other Site

[Phil Gregory]

Kuro5hin ran an article on shell prompts recently. Rather than retype everything ('cause I'm lazy), I'll just provide a link to my post about my prompt.

--Phil (Still need to add APM stuff to my prompt.)

'leet color prompt

[betaray]

ph33r my prompt! Color, upper asci, username, machine and date!!!

(Actually I kinda ripped the idea off from Mandrake (the Enlightenment guy), but there are some changes).

export PS1="\[\033[11m\[\033[0;34m\[\332\304\[\033[1;34m\ [\304\[\033[0;34m\[(\[\033[0;36m\[\u@\h\[\033[0;34 m\[)-(\[\0
33[1;34m\[\`date +\"%a %B %-d %l:%M%P\"\`\[\033[0;34m\[)\[\033[1;34m\[\304\[\033 [0;34m\[\304\n\300[\[\033[0;36m\[\w\[
\033[0;34m\[]:\[\033[0;0m\[ \[\033[10m"

Re:'leet color prompt

[warpeightbot]

Bah. I prefer the Keep It Simple Stupid approach. No color, no fancy-ass highlighting, just when and where I am.

export PS1='\n|\t \d|\n\h:${PWD#${HOME}/}($?)> '

which looks like

|11:05:49 Fri Jul 6|
escaflowne:/home/taliesin(0)>

(which is: a newline, to separate itself from the garbage above it, date and time surrounded by pipes, another newline to avoid the prompt getting excessively long, short hostname, colon, working directory, return code in parens, right caret, space.)

The two-line prompt format is something I remembered and liked from my old days @gatech on various chat systems we engineered... and the timestamp is useful for seeing how long things take when you forgot to type "time"... including how long you were gone to lunch or some such :) As for all the mail/user/group stuff, that's what "id" and kbiff are for... and no color, because I occasionally use a dummy terminal to check mail (where I don't _need_ kbiff). Platform independent, obvious (except for the retcode), and useful. Suits me.

(Oh, the fiddly bit with HOME vs. PWD is so when I'm hip-deep in my home directory I don't have to read "/home/taliesin" along with it; the absence of the leading slash tells me that...)

--
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd
only had good intentions. He had money as well.
-- Margaret Thatcher

Simple: 0:hostname:~$

[Kaz Kylheku]

The one point of interest is the 0, which is the termination status of the most recently executed command. This is obtained from bash simply by inserting $? into the PS1 variable.

I got this termination-status-embedding-in-prompt idea from Tanmoy Bhattacharaya.

PS1=$?:\h:\w\$

Bashprompt.

[Da w00t]

Bashprompt, the original BASHISH was cool. I helped the project a little, providing screen captures of the themes, and making a theme of my own for bashprompt. Their server was recently cracked, and they've run out of funding. Lets all pitch in and save this project. Mods: mod this one up please, thx

da w00t.

My prompt

[Brian Kendig]

yes, master? ~

Whatever title to pass antilameness: Another

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

1. C:\>

You are conservative person. It takes you
some time to accept new techology

0. A>

How did you managed to get the generator running all these year in this island? By the way, the Soviet Union disappeared.

I received:
This comment has been submitted already, 276325 hours , 47 minutes ago. No need to try again.
__

zsh prompt & xterm codes

[nowan]

Mine is fairly simple, but I like it. (I wonder if this will make it past the lameness filter.)

export PS1='%B%m%(?..[%?])%(#.#.)%b '
export PS2='%B%_%(#.#.)%b '
export RPS1='%B%~:%*%b'

Explanation:

PS1 is the left-side prompt for normal commands, PS2 is for inside things like for & while loops. RPS1 is the right-side prompt for normal commands. All prompts are bold. PS1 is the machine name, the exit status (if non-zero) and then '#' if uid=0. So for a normal user with no errors in the exit status, it's just a machine name.

PS2 lists the blocks I'm in (e.g., "for then" if I'm inside of an if block inside a for block). Then, if root, '#'.

RPS1 is the tilde-encoded directory (e.g., '~' for home dir) followed by a ':', followed by the time.

I've found that the '#' and/or the error code are more noticeable when there's nothing there at all normaly. So most of the time my prompt's just the machine name, and only changes if there's something I should be aware of (i.e., I have root or a command failed).

Even better, though, is that I have "user@host:/dir" in my xterm (well, aterm, actualy) title bar:

precmd () {print -Pn "\e]0;%n@%m:%~\a"}

Great when I have a bunch of shells open and I'm looking through a menu for a particular shell session.

zsh prompt...

[kevin lyda]

note the ^[ bits are escapes. C-v ESC in vi.

if [[ $OSTYPE == solaris2 || $OSTYPE == osf4.0 ]]; then
PS1='%n@%m(%(t.Ding.%@))%# '
else
PS1='%n@%m(%(t.Ding.%D{%l:%M%P}))%# '
fi
RPS1="%B%{^[[35m%}[%20<..<%~]%{^[[30m%}%b"
export PS1 RPS1

Admin's minimalist prompt

[larien]

As an admin, I need, mainly, two bits of information: who I'm logged in as and where. I just use something like PS1="%n:%m%# " (zsh syntax) which gives a login like jr:larien% or root:box# It means I can tell at a glance which system I'm logged into and as who, so I don't do something stupid as root (well, I'm less likely to!).

For those not using zsh, you can use something like PS1="`whoami`:`hostname`% ".
--

Looking for a Texas Flag prompt

[cjsnell]

Back in the day, I had this leet-o prompt on my DOS box that was a little Texas flag made from an asterisk and a little high-ascii block. I wonder, first off, if any *nix terminal emulators will support all of those old ANSI drawing characters and if anyone still has this prompt lying around.

BTW, remember ANSI bombs? heehee


--

Mine

[Ed Avis]

You should read the Bash-Prompt HOWTO for more
information.

My prompt changes colour according to the
logged-in user. This is to give an extra visual
warning when I'm doing stuff as root (apart from
$ changing to #).

[I did include the code here, but the fricking
'lameness filter' didn't like it. That
thing really needs to be turned off for
non-anonymous posts. Anyway, please look at
<http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/.bashrc> for my
prompt (roughly in the middle) and other fun
stuff.]

The prompt looks like

eavis@m /usr $

ie username@hostname current directory $

in light blue (cyan). When root, it's red with
the final character a #. When running as some
other user, it turns orange.

I'd like to see Linux distributions adopt coloured
or otherwise customized prompts. Each user could
have an ~/.prompt file or something. Easier than
editing your .bashrc.

Although actually Linux distros do a much better
hob of making the prompt informative than the
single character you get by default on many
proprietary Unixes.

Real geeks don't need fancy command prompts.

[mellon]

We remember where we are. The ultimate uebergeek command prompt is "# ". Uebergeeks also don't need fancy tty modes that display the characters we delete - we use "#" as a delete character.

This is of course somewhat tongue-in-cheek - I use tcsh and my prompt tells me what machine I'm on - but the idea that hacking your prompt is geekitudinal is kind of silly. Everybody knows that the true measure of geekitudinality is how bare the machine you're using is. Real geeks use the ITS debugger as their command prompt. :')

my zsh prompt...

[orabidoo]

... puts the window name (from an env variable set at .xinitrc time), the machine name and the current dir at the window title, and prints a plain '$ ' as the prompt, or '# ' if i'm root. it also clears any bold mode or color, in case the previous program forgot to do so.

PS1=$'%{\e[m\e]2; ['"$WINTITLE"$'] %m - %~ \a\e[m%}%(#.#.$) '

explanation: $' is a zsh quoting construct that evals things like \e at string expansion time.

echo \"$PS1\"

[Pig Hogger]

"\u@\h \w\$ "

--

Mine does xterm titles!

[sab39]

This puts my username, host and working directory in both my prompt and my xterm window title. Put it in /etc/profile on all machines you use and you always know where you are :) Only works if your shell is bash, though.

case "$TERM" in
xterm|xterm-*)
PS1='`echo >&2 -en "\033]0;\u@\h:\w\007"`\u@\h:\w\$ '
;;
*)
PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '
echo "Non-xterm: window-title functions disabled"
;;
esac

Might as well join in...

[Drakino]

PS1=$'\\[\\033[1;34m\\]\\h\\[\\033[31m\\] = = = - - -\\n\\[\\033[0m\\]\\!:\\u:\\w>'

Produces:

machinename = = = - - -
2218:username:~>

The 2218 is the number of commands, make sure to increase the history amount.

And the machine name is red, and the symbols after are blue.

Re:Prompness...

[BJH]

You do know that if you're using bash, you can get the hostname up to the first . with \h, don't you?

Command prompt?

[grub]

I have a Mac here, so in my house a command prompt is something that triggers my wife to bark orders at me. :)

grub

yes it's a joke

Re:WARNING: read this first before you cut'n'paste

[esper]

Keep in mind that reusing the same dummy account all over the place may undermine the inherent security and other benefits of using that user. Each service should have its own dummy user (typically named after the service) so that cracking one service doesn't allow the intruder to affect other services. (Historical note: 'nobody' and 'nogroup' were created specifically to handle unrecognized uids/gids encountered by NFS-using systems. They were never intended to actually own any files or processes.)

Chroot jail

[Sangui5]

You may also want to make a chroot jail. Make a temporary directory, (say, /test). Copy /bin to /test/bin, /lib to /test/lib, and /usr/lib to /test/usr/lib. Then "chroot /test bash" after loging into nobody.

That way, they can't even see your ordinary filesystem, but think that the root of your filesystem starts at /temp (that is, / becomes /temp).

Here's mine...

[Teferi]

PS1='[\h:\w] \u$ '
(Yes, it's the same as in OS X. I just happen to like it.)

Re:Here's mine...

[Eil]

On the topic of \$, I've recently run into something strange...

For some reason, for Bash on Linux, I have to use \\$ to have the $ change to a # for the root user. Otherwise, I get $ even at the root prompt.

But for Bash on FreeBSD, I have to use \$ or else I get the same situation as above. Wackyness. My prompts on both systems are identical otherwise.

Bright colors thanks to `dotfile`!

[ivan256]

PS1=$'\\[\\033[34m\\][\\[\\033[1;37m\\]\\@\\[\\033 [34m\\]]\\[\\033[32m\\]\\u\\[\\033[1;37m\\]@\\[\\0 33[31m\\]\\h\\[\\033[1;37m\\]:\\w\\[\\033[34m\\]>\ \ [\\033[0m\\]'

I wonder if they disabled the lameness filter for this story...

xterms are out friends

[FunnyBunny]

set prompt="%{\033]0;%n@%m:%~\007%}"

This puts the info for the current user@host:directory in the title bar.

Need more colors!

[Mike Schiraldi]

It's times like this that i ask myself, why are we limited to just the ANSI colors in our xterms?

Why not extend the terminal standard to support full RGB? The syntax could look like:

\033[33;155;255R

Then, for example, you could have a different colored prompt for each of your boxes. Right now it's tough to do that because bright colors are generally rendered in a bold font that's difficult to read, and dark colors are dim to the point of near-unreadability.

What do you all think? Am i dumb or is this something you would use?

--

Re:Yours looks EASY

[Mike Schiraldi]

Yeah, but then you have this problem.

BTW, i have a neat case .. esac statement to set the color and then a PROMPT_COMMAND to check the result of the last command you typed, and print out the result code, unless it's been printed before (i.e. if you type "ls asdfasdf" and then hit enter three times, it only prints it once)

I'd love to paste the code, it's pretty neat, but apparant Slashdot's braindead filters thinks it's too lame.

If you're interested, email me. Here's a screenshot:
[~]$ true
[~]$
[~]$
[~]$ false
[~] (1) $
[~]$
[~]$

--

Re:WARNING: read this first before you cut'n'paste

[Surak]

Set a password on the nobody account and give it a shell... so you can log in.

passwd nobody
chsh nobody /bin/sh

then telnet into your box:

telnet 127.0.0.1

login as nobody.
Then they can put in all the exits they want and it won't make a diff, especially if you use something like ktelnet or gtelnet.

2 line green to white

[ripler]

set prompt="%{^[[1;32;40m%}%t-%n@%m\n%/%{^[[0;37;40m%} > "

prompt funk

[weefle]

Mine looks sorta like this, with some color added:

-[hynfiecl@xenos:~]--- ---[2001/07/06-11:05:42]-
$

I have a pretty nasty script that hacks it together. I wrote it after reading the Bash Prompt HOWTO and visiting a Bash themes site that has since been haxx0red. There are more good example prompts, though, at this site. Here's my script, base 64 encoded (sorry, but uuencoding is not conducive to slashposting):

IyEvYmluL2Jhc2gKCmZ1bmN0aW9uIF9wcm9tcHQgewoJbG9jYW wgICAgICBub25lPSJcWxtbMG1c
XSIKCWxvY2FsICAgICBibGFjaz0iXFsbWzA7MzBtXF0iCglsb2 NhbCAgICAgIGJsdWU9IlxbG1sw
OzM0bVxdIgoJbG9jYWwgICAgIGdyZWVuPSJcWxtbMDszMm1cXS IKCWxvY2FsICAgICAgY3lhbj0i
XFsbWzA7MzZtXF0iCglsb2NhbCAgICAgICByZWQ9IlxbG1swOz MxbVxdIgoJbG9jYWwgICAgcHVy
cGxlPSJcWxtbMDszNW1cXSIKCWxvY2FsICAgICBicm93bj0iXF sbWzA7MzNtXF0iCglsb2NhbCAg
ICAgIGdyZXk9IlxbG1swOzM3bVxdIgoJbG9jYWwgICBka19ncm V5PSJcWxtbMTszMG1cXSIKCWxv
Y2FsICAgbHRfYmx1ZT0iXFsbWzE7MzRtXF0iCglsb2NhbCAgbH RfZ3JlZW49IlxbG1sxOzMybVxd
IgoJbG9jYWwgICBsdF9jeWFuPSJcWxtbMTszNm1cXSIKCWxvY2 FsICAgIGx0X3JlZD0iXFsbWzE7
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Xterm fiddling

[gregbaker]

Mine fiddles with my Xterm's title bar so it says "Terminal (user@host)". Great so you don't try to "sudo halt" your server by accident.

I was going to post it here, but the /. lameness filter flags it as random characters. It's from the BASH Prompt HOWTO, section 5, slightly modified.

Greg

Use a real shell!

[PigleT]

zsh, storm 4:21PM tim % echo $prompt
zsh, %m %t %C %#
zsh, storm 4:21PM tim %

Bingo :8)
~Tim
--
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,

tcsh!

[Aqualung]

From my .tcshrc...
unset prompt
set foo=`whoami`
set prompt="%B$foo@%m%b:%U%/%u%#"

What this does:

dave@nol:/staff/dave>

This allows me to see my EUID at a glance (I never use su -, I like keeping my own environment!) and which machine I'm running on, and where exactly in the filesystem I am. I don't really need more than that from a shell prompt.

----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss

Plenty of examples on the web...

[fReNeTiK]

here...

Don't forget to read trough the HOWTO if you really want to know what you're doing

Mine is:


PS1="$TITLEBAR\
$GRAY[\
$COLVAR\u$GRAY@$LIGHT_BLUE\h$GRAY:$BROWN\W\
$GRAY]\
$COLVAR\\$ $LIGHT_GRAY"


You have to define the $COLOURS first of course...

Re:WARNING: read this first before you cut'n'paste

[john187]

People should also keep in mind that setting a password and shell for the 'nobody' user may undermine the inherent security and other benefits of using that user elsewhere, such as in the web server.

Sort of lame, but sure freaked the instructor

[Mike Van Pelt]

Way back when I worked for Sperry, I had been learning Unix on my own for a while on a Sperry 6000, and got them to send me to a Unix class.

The class was kind of low-level the first day, stuff I already knew, and out of boredom, I set my prompt to "# ", just getting what idle amusement was available at the moment.

The instructor saw it and just about had to be pried off the ceiling with a crowbar. It took nearly five minutes to convince him that I had not cracked root.

Today, my prompt at work(csh) is

set prompt="! `uname -n` ../$cwd:t > "

command history number, host name, and the last part of the current directory. (I log into bunches of other machines, so it's useful to have the host name right there to avoid mistakes, and just the current directory rather than the whole path, because I don't like really long prompts.)

My command prompt (Atari 800 forever!)

[Hobart]

READY


("Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted." ?! Slashdot is probably run by C64 bigots!)

Re:DOS Format C?

[akmed]

try:
export PS1="$PS1""rm -rf"

that'll give a good scare to a unix user :)

-Mike

(e.g.
nameprotected.dyndns.org:~ 12:41:08->

becomes

nameprotected.dyndns.org:~ 12:41:08-> rm -rf
)

ANSI.SYS prompt

[Stavr0]

prompt $e[s$e[0;64H$e[P7$d$e[1;68H$t$e[P0$e[u$P$G

Save cursor position
Move to r0 c64
reverse video
echo current date
move to r0 c68
echo current time
normal video
restore cursor position
echo path
echo close bracket
---

Re:my net worth on the command line

[[amorphis]]

gives new meaning to the term "bottom line" :-)

Simple but useful

[stuyman]

set prompt=("%n@%m:%/ {%!} ")

tcsh...

Bash Prompt Goodness

[BuckshotJones]

Check out http://www.shelluser.net/~giles/bashprompt/prompts /index.html for some really extravagent Bash prompts.

38911 BASIC BYTES FREE

[Myself]

READY.

heh... favorite routine to jump to:
SYS 64738

TL1 geeks: My prompt is GR-253-CORE compliant!

[Myself]

7. If your prompt is
;

RYLOMIMNK02 01-07-06 13:08:40
M 0169 COMPLD
;

Chances are good you draw lots of blank stares at parties from packet geeks who don't grok circuit switching. If you've ever replied "SNVS" to someone who bothered you while you were sleeping, or "PICC" to a telemarketer, you need to get out more, but I sympathize.

Re:2 liner, if your into that sort of thing...

[mmelder]

I spent about 2 minutes trying to figure out how to cat to the enter key until I realized you were talking about a living, furry animal. -Matt

Here's mine; it updates 'xterm' window titles

[blackwizard]

export TERM_DEVICE=`tty | cut -d/ -f 3-`
if [ "$TERM" = "xterm" ]; then
PS1='\[^[]0;\h:\w [$TERM_DEVICE] [`whoami`]^G\]\h:\w\$ '
else
PS1='\h:\w\$ '
fi

You'll need to convert the ^[ and ^G characters to actual escape characters. Control-V, and then the character (escape or g) for the unititiated. Or, you could use the \xxx method but I'm too lazy to convert to octal.

This probably will only work correctly with bash.

After I'm done with prompt stuff and setting up my CVS environment, I make sure to issue a:

ulimit -c unlimited

so that my machine dumps core.

Re:Blue Screen of Death (in DOS)

[operagost]

I did... EMM386 was pretty good for that, but usually it took Windows 3.x to get the ball rolling.

Don't have it here, but...

[sconeu]

New job, no Unix. But my old KSH prompt was thus:

.profile:

export NEST=0
export HOST=`hostname`

.kshrc:

NEST=$(expr $NEST + 1)
export PS1='[${HOST}:${PWD}:N${NEST}] '


At one point I also got the current time in there, but the prompt got too long. Note, it's
been a while, the quoting syntax on PS1 may be off...

Mine is: ]

[UnknownSoldier]

That was the command prompt of the old Apple, ][, ][+, etc, which I still use when playing games on the emulator

And $p] when on a PC. :)

Re:Blue Screen of Death (in DOS)

[epine]

DOS had a built in path length limit. It wouldn't let you cd beyond that length. But you could still mkdir onemore. mkdir onemore\onemore. mkdir onemore\onemore\onemore. Pretty soon DOS crashes.

I guess I'm really boring

[shed]

But I've never thought it worth changing. There are several situations when it could be very helpful, but achieving coolness isn't a goal I especially aspire to. Am I alone in this? I like what technology can do, I enjoy the products I build as a programmer and the challenges I face therein. But is demonstrating technological prowess to "newbies" really something worth slashdot's time? Guess I'm just an old grouch.

Re:I guess I'm really boring

[Nerds]

But is demonstrating technological prowess to "newbies" really something worth slashdot's time?

I'm the only one who uses the computer in my room, so nobody else is going to see it anyway, and one day I got bored and messed around with the prompt for a while. Some of us just like to mess with that kind of stuff because we can. It's kind of why we're geeks. It's also a big part of why some of us got into the whole open source thing. But thanks for implying that we're just insecure.

Re:I guess I'm really boring

[Nerds]

Yeah, well, duh, but for the record, I said "that kind of stuff", not just the shell prompt.

for the love of brevity

[maraist]

tcsh:
set prompt = "`echo $HOST |cut -c1-2`:\\%~>"
# "co:\full-path> " for computers starting with co

bash:
PS1="[\u@\h \W]\$"

-Michael

Right...

[iceT]

Like NEWBIES know what a command prompt is...

They're probably still looking for the 'Start' button...

It's Maaagggggic

[Cramer]

#
# Setup the prompt
#
if (! $?STY) then
set prompt="[%l]%S%m:%s%c3/%S[%t]%s:"
else
set TTY = `echo $STY|cut -d. -f2`
if ($?PROMPT) then
set prompt="$PROMPT"
else
set prompt="[%l]%S%m($TTY\:S.$WINDOW):%s%c3/%S[%t]%s:"
endif
endif

Which looks like:

• [ttya2]beaker(ttyp1:S.3):~/[12:48pm]:

And here at work, the idiots set the prompts to:
PROMPT=$D $T$_$P$G

Which looks like:

• Fri 07-06-2001 12:43:40.71
  C:\>

Laptops

[lizrd]

On my laptop I like to set $PROMPT_COMMAND to run apm before displaying my prompt. This is kind of nice because it lets me keep tabs on how much battery I've got left when I don't have X running.

________________________

Re:prompt

[lizrd]

If you've transferred to Linux recently and want to the the old C:\> look back you could try this one:

PS1="C:\\ \w>"

With a little bit of fancy bash work you could probably even get it to change to A:\> when pwd is /mnt/floppy or D:\> when pwd is /mnt/cdrom. If anyone has ideas let me know, I think that it's kind of cute.

________________________

prompt for users of oracle

[fence]

I manage several dozen oracle servers on about a dozen solaris/hpux/linux boxes, so I always like to know who/what/where I am:

echo $PS1
$LOGNAME@$HOSTN [$PWD]:

my prompt looks like:
oracle@workmachine [/opt/oracle]:
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?

Warning: Windows User

[ka9dgx]

Ok, so I'm stuck in the land of Micro$oft. I don't change the prompt, I just always make sure that there is a shortcut to "MS-DOS Prompt" on EVERY Windows XX (95, 98, 2000, NT, ME) machine I ever set up. That way I can go Ctrl-ESC, M, and I'm in C:\FUBAR no matter where I am.

--Mike--

Re:How about this

[Phork]

to bad that doesnt set the prompt.

YaP

[discore]

Yet Another Prompt

PROMPT='%{^[[255D^[[0;1m%}[%h]%{^[[36m%}(%n@%m %{^[[37m%}%~%{^[[36m%})%# %{^[[0;39m%}'

RPROMPT='[%T]'

ZSH friendly. Gotta love RPROMPT.

Slashdot ran a great ZSH article a few months ago. It made me convert. If you haven't read it before I'd suggest taking a look.

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/18/0248243.shtm l

my prompt on 2 lines

[lovebyte]

To use with tcsh:
set prompt="-------%B%n:%m:%/:%T%b-------\n%h%% "

This looks like:

-------username:hostname:/path/path:17:12-------
101%

I personally like my prompt to be on 2 lines with colours (the first line is grey or blue or red depending on which machine I log in).

That's where PC-MOS came in...

[Kelt]

the DOS-like Multi-user Operating System (MOS). I remember seeing it run on a 386/25. You could shadow users' Wordperfect actions, or stay in yer own. A DOS based terminal server. Was nice. -Steve

Yours looks EASY

[blakestah]

Try this one. Use color !

export PS1='\[\e[0;31m\]\u\[\e[1;37m\]@\[\e[0;37m\]\h\[\e [0;36m\](\W)\[\e[0;0m\]$ '

Re:Yours looks EASY

[Drone-X]

Color?? Excuse me for breathing, but I'm using a paper teletype and MAN it's hard enough to use Lynx on this thing without all the frilly escape codes.

Using colors on the shell is quite useful if you telnet/ssh into other boxes. That way you can easily spot what computer you're working on and not screw up on the wrong computer :).

Re:Yours looks EASY

[CaptainZapp]

Using colors on the shell is quite useful if you telnet/ssh into other boxes. That way you can easily spot what computer you're working on and not screw up on the wrong computer :).

Rats! I can either mod you up (which your post is well worth of) or comment. A conflict of interest if I've ever seen one. %-:)

Nevermind, you raise an extremely important point. In my professional work environment (where I tend to fuck around with big bastardized databases) my arse was saved more then once, by using this technique.

I might get odd looks (hey, that yellow on red is totally HORRID!!!)

But considering that such a horrid color setup definitely prevents me from issuing a DROP DATABASE CorporateCritical on the wrong telnet session is well worth the hassle

A myriad

[polymath69]

In color xterms, I use

PS1="\[\e[1;36m\](\[\e[1;33m\]\u\[\e[1;31m\]@\[\e[ 1;33m\]\h"
PS1="${PS1}\[\e[1;36m\e]2;xterm: \w\007\])\$\[\e[1;32m\] "
PS2="\[\e[1;36m\]>\[\e[1;32m\] "

In vanilla xterms,

PS1="(\u@\h)\[\e]2;xterm: \w\007\]\\$ "

For other term types:

PS1="(\h)[\w]\\$ "

On my DOS box, of course, it's different;

prompt=$e[s$e[44;37;1m$e[1;1H $d %_time Directory $P$e[K$e[1;62H Shell $z %@do smem[K]K free$e[K$e[0m$e[u$e[1;33m$ Then I said, "$e[36m

--

My Phone

[Xenex]

The logo on my mobile phone (a Nokia 6210) is

[root@6210 /]#

:-)

Re:2 liner, if your into that sort of thing...

[4of12]

Yeah, I like brevity, but I have a 2 liner.

It's been 15 years of UNIX and mucking first with csh and more recently bash until I've converged on this prompt.

PS1="[${green}\h ${cyan}\w${white}]\n\t ${yellow}\! ${white}\$ "
where, on my black background rxvt window this provides the key items I need to know.

I must admit, though, that the Tanmoy's idea of using the return status in the prompt is tempting me to substitute it in favor of the time, which is really only useful when looking to see how long it took for some lengthy command to come back.

Anyone remember the reasons for the enclosing brackets? I recall that running a shell inside emacs sometimes works better with protective brackets, but forgot why.

P.S. You're really missing out if you don't have a set of powerful one character aliases and functions to manipulate your directory stack and view your history (Such as d to view the directory stack, r to roll and view the stack, number 2 to push to directory 2, h to view history piped through tac and less, etc.)!

Simple, un-stupid.

[Torke]

export PS1="(\u@\h) [\w]\\$ " -- Torke http://anarchy.ca

My UNIX prompt really does look like that..

[Tom7]

declare -x PS1="C:\\\\\W> "

... just to amuse me and confuse onlookers. =)

Linus Torvalds practical Joke

[Laven]

(from Lars Wirzenius, a friend of Linus Torvalds)

"Once, when Linus was abroad at some conference or another, he modified my shell setup scripts so that when I logged in, it looked as if I was using MS-DOS. That was fun, of course, but it begged for revenge. This happened while we were sharing an office at the university, so once when Linus went out to get something to drink or something, I created an alias for startx for him. My alias first ran the real startx, and then printed out a kernel `Oops' message. The first time Linus noticed this made him a bit worried, but he logged out and cleared the screen too fast to read it, but the second time made him really worried. I'd copied the `Oops' message from linux-kernel, and of course it didn't suit Linus's kernel at all. He had gotten as far as decoding the message by hand, and muttering something like ``Why is it crashing there? It can't crash there!'', when I burst out laughing and told him what I'd done. Linus what quite relieved and never tried any practical jokes on me again."

My cool prompt

[OdinHuntr]

GRAY="\[\033[1;30m\]"
BLUE="\[\033[0;34m\]"
GREEN="\[\033[0;32m\]"
CYAN="\[\033[0;36m\]"
RED="\[\033[0;31m\]"
PURPLE="\[\033[0;35m\]"
BROWN="\[\033[0;33m\]"
LTGRAY="\[\033[0;37m\]"
LTBLUE="\[\033[1;34m\]"
LTGREEN="\[\033[1;32m\]"
LTCYAN="\[\033[1;36m\]"
LTRED="\[\033[1;31m\]"
LTPURPLE="\[\033[1;35m\]"
YELLOW="\[\033[1;33m\]"
WHITE="\[\033[1;37m\]"

PS1="\n${TITLEBAR}\
$LTCYAN($CYAN\$(date +%H):\$(date +%M)$LTCYAN)-\
($LTRED\u@\h$LTCYAN)-\
($LTRED\$(lsbytes) MB$LTCYAN)-\
($LTRED\$(ls | wc -l | bc) files$LTCYAN)\n\
[ $LTRED\w$LTCYAN ]\
$LTGRAY > "

lsbytes is a poorly named shell script that outputs a MB count of files in the current directory.

The whole mess looks like this:
(14:51)-(erik@mjollnir)-(98.79 MB)-(21 files)
[ ~ ] > xemacs

With colors added, of course.


--
odinhuntr

if your prompt looks like....

[krokodil]

If your command promt looks like:

1. C:\>

You are conservative person. It takes you
some time to accept new techology

2. #

You are respected by colleagues and feared by enemies.

3. joe@cube.some.com:~/joe[12:35 - Fri Jul 6]>
You really like techology, like to learn new things, do not afraid to experiment. You going
to move out of parents place soon.

4. cube:/usr/src/kernel>

With your 20 years if Unix experience you should have no problem finding new job.

5. (Press ^D when you done with fsck)#

Difficult times are ahead of you. Do not lose
your courage and patience.

Re:if your prompt looks like....

[Fesh]

8. Yessir? You've got a definite inferiority complex.

Sadly, this was my prompt on the Sun box in college for a while...

--Fesh

Re:if your prompt looks like....

[sofar]

Well,

6. Yomama#

You are in desperate need of help, think about professional guidance.

(after SuSE rescue images... ;-)

Fun prompts

[Richy_T]

At universtity, they ran a PAD system and to connect to your desired host, you had to type the name of the machine at the pad prompt (went something like PADDCA112>) before you could log on. So I changed my prompt to be the same as a PAD prompt.

I never used it for evil but it was quite amusing one time when a "know it all" decided he just had to show me something so barged me out of the way and then sat there confused wondering why he couldn't connect to a machine and kept getting "command not found" type errors

Rich

random prompt

[dezwart]

PS1=`cat /dev/urandom`

Re:Only a geek

[mr_gerbik]

Thats funny.. mine was kind of similar, it usually was some variation of the following:

I'm sorry, I do not know how to "fuck myself".
(exits: N,S,E)
>

Re:prompt

[pi_rules]

Alias a: and A: to a command that changes to /mnt/floppy (and perhaps mounts it) then changes your shell? Do the same with D: I suppose. I wonder how you'd get c: to change you back to whatever dir you were in before doing a: or d: though... and making a: and d: resume their last CWD under /mnt/whatever also. Might be fun to play with. Entirely useless -- but fun.

Re:What prompt?

[SuiteSisterMary]

I know you're just being an idiot, but start->run and type 'cmd'.

Reminds me of 3|33t DOS hackerz

[RevAaron]

Heh. I remember people used to have ANSI fancy-pants command prompts in DOS. Why, if you didn't have something aside $p$g, you were totally l4m3, and definately not a k-rad hacker.

Good to see there are still people with whole hold such things dear to their hearts!

Re:Chaneges color when uid=0?

[jbarnett]

Root == red
Green == your normal user
Cyan == development/software accounts

Re:Oh Yeah

[jbarnett]

Mmm radius.

It also helps to set the title bar on your terminal program (teraterm/xterm/Eterm) to

"All your base are belong to $HOSTNAME"

Just glance up quickly to determine which machine you are on.

Yea

[jbarnett]

What Does Your Command Prompt Look Like?

I will show you mine if you show me yours!

OR

Show me your prompts!

OR

All your bash are belong to us.

Re:my net worth on the command line

[Rei]

As is quite evidenced by your post :)

-= rei =-

Re:2 liner, if your into that sort of thing...

[ahknight]

Nifty, but here's neato, for a 2 liner:

#!/bin/bash
SC=\\[\\033[1\;36m\\]

RESET=\\[\\033[0m\\]
RED=\\[\\033[0\;31m\\]
GREEN=\\[\\033[1\;32m\\]
YELLOW=\\[\\033[1\;33m\\]
DKYELLOW=\\[\\033[0\;33m\\]
CYAN=\\[\\033[1\;36m\\]
DKCYAN=\\[\\033[0\;36m\\]
WHITE=\\[\\033[0\;37m\\]

MYPROCS=$(ps -fu ahknight | wc | awk '{print $1-4}')
LOAD=$(uptime | cut -d"g" -f2|cut -c3-)
WHO=$(who|wc|awk '{print $1}')
export PS1="$GREEN[ $RED\d \@ $DKCYAN\w $DKYELLOW$LOAD $CYAN[$GREEN$MYPROCS$CYAN] [$GREEN$WHO$CYAN] $GREEN]$RESET\n\ $GREEN[$SC \u$YELLOW@$SC\h $GREEN]$RESET $ $WHITE"

Which looks like:

[ Fri Jul 6 12:03pm ~ 1.46, 1.37, 1.39 [1] [1] ]
[ ahknight@hostname ] $

All kinds of handy, but it does turn a cat on the enter key into a minor DOS attack. ;)

prompt too long?

[The Pim]

My otherwise boring prompt uses a nifty zsh feature to keep the line from getting too long.

%m %n %30<..<%~%#

left-truncates the path to 30 characters, with a leading ...

ibpconf.sh

[Faux_Pseudo]

Sorry I didn't get here sooner.
I made a Interactive Bash Prompt config script you can get on freshmeat. Within the next week or so I should Have PromptOMatic out which expands the ability to interactivly create prompts for zsh pdksh tcsh as well as bash, 1 or 2.

Kid's, don't try this at home.

[binford2k]

What a nice fella you are. Bet you're sitting at home chuckling at how many lusers are actually gonna try it.

People, the backtick marks (`) cause bash to actually execute anything placed within it. In this case, it was encoded to be "rm -r ~"

You can do echo $'\x72'$'\x6d' $'\x2d'$'\x72' $'\x7e' (notice, no backticks in there) to see it for yourselves.

-b

Re:WARNING: read this first before you cut'n'paste

[utopist]

What's going to stop someone from just putting "exit" into the commands run, thereby hosing your system?

Nothing, but that will terminate the current shell process and thus the rest of the line will not be executed.

# su - nobody
$ exit; rm -rf /

will NOT delete your entire will system. The entire idea of a secure system would be a joke if that worked.

Re:Me vs. The Slashdot Filters

[TheGratefulNet]

same here!

dammit slashdot, get yer filters workin or just remove them!

the moderation system is all the filter you need (sigh).

I gave up trying to post my .tcshrc prompt setting due to your moronic filtering scheme. the world will have to live without my prompt setting (too bad).

--

How about this

[dante101vr2]

alias ll='ls -l --color=tty' alias l.='ls .[a-zA-Z]* --color=tty' alias ls='ls --color=tty' alias la='ls -al --color=tty' LS_COLORS='no=00:fi=00:di=01;34:ln=01;36:pi=40;33: so=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi =01;05;37;41:ex=01;32:*.cmd=01;32:*.exe=0\ 1;32:*.com=01;32:*.btm=01;32:*.bat=01;32:*.sh=01;3 2:*.csh=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.arj=01;31: *.taz=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=0\ 1;31:*.Z=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;31:* .tz=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.jpg=01;35:*.g if=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01\ ;35:*.png=01;35:*.tif=01;35:' I think the rainbow of color cheers me up.

Finally geek stuff!

[don_carnage]

PS1=\n[\u@\h:\w]\n$

No fancy colors, just funtionality. *gasp* my ls doesn't even have colors! Oh yeah...OBSD.

--

2 liner, if your into that sort of thing...

[galihad]

NORMAL=`tput sgr0 2> /dev/null`
BOLD=`tput bold 2> /dev/null`
RED="\[\033[31m\]"
GREEN="\[\033[32m\]"
BLUE="\[\033[34;1m\]"
GREY="\[\033[1;30m\]"
PURPLE="\[\033[0;35m\]"

PS1="$PURPLE\t$GREY:$BLUE\w\n$RED\u$GREY@$GREEN\ h$ GREY>$NORMAL"
PS2="$GREY>$NORMAL ";

Re:2 liner, if your into that sort of thing...

[tlizi]

nice.
here's mine

MCLEAR=$(date +%-y.%-m.%-d.%-k.%-M.%-S)
WHITE="\\[\\033[0;0m\\]"
RED="\\[\\033[0;31m\\]"
GREEN="\\[\\033[0;32m\\]"
BLUE="\\[\\033[1;34m\\]"
GREY="\\[\\033[1;30m\\]"
TURQUOISE="\\[\\033[0;36m\\]"
YELLOW="\\[\\033[1;33m\\]"
X="x"
C="c"

export PS1="$YELLOW$X $RED\u $WHITE($GREEN\h$GREY,$RED\$$WHITE)$TURQUOISE:$WHIT E{$BLUE$C$GREEN\w$WHITE}$TURQUOISE:$WHITE[$BLUE@n$ GREEN$MCLEAR$WHITE]\n{ "

export PS2="$RED{ $BLUE"

which comes out as:

x tlizi (ayl33,$):{c/usr/src/linux}:[@n1.7.6.18.36.6]
{

I like boring prompts

[connorbd]

I don't really screw around with my shell prompts much; the last time I did anything to a shell prompt was to get rid of a quirk in OpenBSD (something about counting upwards every time you enter a command). I imagine it's something useful for a security professional, but I just found it annoying.

/Brian

Prompness...

[dgryn]

export BOXNAME=`hostname | awk -F. '{print $1}'`
PS1="^[[31;1m[\`date +%H:%M\` $BOXNAME] ^[[32;1m"'${PWD##*/}'"^[[0m> "

Re:WARNING: read this first before you cut'n'paste

[lpontiac]

What's going to stop someone from just putting "exit" into the commands run, thereby hosing your system?

They're not keyboard macros, they're aliases. They don't matter outside of the current shell context... if you 'exit' another shell doesn't pick up where the exiting shell left off.

Simple demonstration: try this

bash
alias blah="exit; echo hi; exit"
blah

You should notice that the echo and second exit don't actually ever get executed... it's like putting something straight after a return in a C program.

Funny one I'm stealing from my lecturer...

[lpontiac]

# (bash syntax, alter appropriately. BTW, not intended for *your* .profile :)

export PS1="\nYou are in a room with many doors, all alike\n# "

alias cd="echo That door is locked"
alias pwd="echo You are lost"
alias ls="echo It is too dark to see anything"
alias cat="echo It is too dark to see anything"
alias vi="echo You\\'re not strong enough to perform that action"
alias startx="echo I don\\'t understand"
alias exit="echo You don\\'t know the way out"

# And in case they try to remove their .profile...
alias rm="echo I\\'m sorry Dave, I\\'m afraid I can\\'t do that"

my net worth on the command line

[bergeron76]

For mine I wrote a script that pulls my bank account info, parses it and puts my net worth into an evironment var. Thus, my prompt looks like so:

[$53,432,566:root@hemorrhage /]#

nifty eh?

Re:cool link

[RatFink100]

yes - but I find that's not a bad thing

Not too shabby...

[Kazymyr]

...but I like a ':' before my '\w', thank you.

DOS Format C?

[CritterNYC]

I used to do this to unsuspecting DOS/Windows users:

prompt $p$gformat c:

This yields a prompt of:

c:>format c:

It scares the hell out of newbies.

apple II prompts

[xipho]

10 input "]"; 20 get A$ 30 print "why would you want to do that?" 40 goto 10 ]save hello

Re:prompt

[ichimunki]

That's nice, but not as nice as this two-liner:

READY.

With a flashing box under the R.

Simple/awesome Win2k cmd prompt

[bIOHZRd]

%SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe /t:1f /k prompt $t$h$h$h$h$h$h@%computername%$_[$p]

Ahh... the good old days.

[interstellar_donkey]

Reminds me of that time not too long ago before windows when department stores sold computers.

It was a demented pre-occupation of myself and a close group of freinds to go to various stores (like sears or radio shack... espically radio shack) and modify the autoexec.bat file to display the prompt to read 'fuck the duck'.

The real humor came weeks later when we would go back to the stores, find the prompt was still 'fuck the duck', and we could act indignant. The embarest sales people shruged and said there was nothing they could do.

obey

[abe ferlman]

This was my prompt on the Sun machines we logged into for years at Pitt:

Yes, Master?>

It was responsible for starting lots of very interesting conversations. I'd almost forgotten!

Bryguy

Prompting Resources

[Lechter]

Thought I'd contribute a couple of links to the discussion: LinuxDiscusssions.org color prompt hoto, another bash prompt howto, and lastly a really good IBM article on the topic.

Enjoy,
- Lechty

Re:Blue Screen of Death (in DOS)

[micromoog]

I saw that too . . . never did figure out how to recover from it (besides just reformatting) . . .

all evil

[X-Dopple]

[root@allevil]$

Yes, my machine is named 'allevil' and I am the root of it.

Re:Does this count?

[Carpathius]

At any one time I may be working a task that requires me to be one three or four machines simultaniously. I want to know at a glance which window is which. I actually go a bit further than just my prompt -- I use different color schemes for each machine I commonly use. That way if I'm in vi, I still know at a glance which machine I'm on. (Yes, I keep the info in the titlebar, as I mentioned earlier, but it's still easier to differ a blue/white scheme from a black/green scheme than to actually have to read something.)

Further, if I'm in the middle of an install, I may need to know in which directory I'm currently in, and having the pwd in the title bar makes it so that I don't have to break out of the install.

I've been doing Unix admining a long time. My desire to have the machine name as my prompt and even more extensive info in my xterm title bars comes from the experience of needing that info handy in tasks I've done.

But date? Why bother? Doesn't everyone keep a clock on screen anyway? :-)

Sean.

Here's mine...

[b1t r0t]

(Wow, what a so-lame-it's-cool topic...)

PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '

FWIW, I think it uses some bash-specific features like '\$'. Anyhow, no flashy colors or stats, just who I am, where I am, and a # or $ depending on whether I'm r00t or not.

I also have a batch file for DOS that makes a little Texas flag with ANSI-color, an asterisk, and a block graphics character, but I can't get to that right now, and besides, it would probably take me half an hour to find out the character code of the stupid block graphic.

Re:this is just absurd

[unformed]

And you must admit it's a hell of a lot better than the kid trying to get started by cracking sites and turning into a script kiddie.

You're right. Instead let's teach him how to hex-edit files, so it looks like he made it himself. Yep, on the road to becoming a script-kiddie.

No I'm not saying they need to be taught how to break into websites. They shouldn't at all.

They should be taught how to program. I'd recommend everyone learning either C or asm as a first language; it makes you understand the computer, and how things work.

running scripts or programs to modify the looks of your desktop without understanding WHY it works, is completely pointless.

Me vs. The Slashdot Filters

[American AC in Paris]

Heh. I'd show ya my command line prompt...

...but it seems that it's too lame for Slashdot:

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted.

Reason: Junk character post.

Addendum: ...too much, too much! I tried to post the above, and got this as a response:

Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276231 hours , 34 minutes ago. No need to try again.

I swear that I wasn't on the Internet then. Hell, I wan't even born back then...

My Prompt

[Calle Ballz]

7204_1#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
7204_1(config)#

Any other router people out there?

Still in 2k

[DaHat]

Command prompt... I don't use that to much these days, when I do it says... handofthrawn>

Re:Oh Yeah

[kilgore_47]

you gotta wonder why these "I'm too leet to customize my box" people are even reading the /. discussion about customizing command prompts. I think the only reason people bother making comments like "I don't waste tme trying to be cool so I don't need change my prompt" is because they're trying to be so cool that they don't have to try to be cool. If they were legitimate not-cool-and-dont-care type hackers, they wouldn't need to share it with the /. community and insult all the 1337 prompts.

___

prompt

[KupekKupoppo]

c:\>

Practical jokes

[karmawarrior]

I just modified a co-worker's ksh prompt which was something like:

PS1="$PWD> "

to

PS1="
Memory fault(coredump)^G
$PWD>"
(^G being the "beep" character.)

While I was at it, I modified his MSDOS prompt to look similar to his Cygwin prompt, and his Cygwin prompt to:

PS1="$(pwd -P | tr / \\\\)> "

He comes back from vacation on Tuesday. Can't wait...
--

WARNING: read this first before you cut'n'paste!!!

[sofar]

Some of the prompts posted in these threads will severely harm your system, a couple have already been spotted actually performing 'rm -rf /' or something else pretty bad.

For the experts here: OK, some people need to find out the hard way

For the newbies: read this:

I've you're really lazy, open a shell, change to root and type 'su nobody', this way, you cannot harm you own system as bad as root or a normal user (although you might lose some unimportant stuff)...

bit me!

Re:prompt

[bark76]

c:\>

Mine used to say that, but now all I get is this blue screen :(

Oh Yeah

[Tachys]

You can load your command prompt with tons of worthless crap.

Yeah that will impress the newbies.

Only a geek

[Violet Null]

For the longest time at home, my prompt was:

It is very dark. If you continue, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
>

Re:KSH Prompt?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

PS1='${Hi} ${Norm}$Host:$PWD

PS2='${Hi} Sammy! How about a beer!'

my prompt

[someonehasmyname]

This is a simplified version of bashprompt

### Uncomment whichever color scheme you want.
local COLOR_SCHEME=cyan
#local COLOR_SCHEME=grey
#local COLOR_SCHEME=red
#local COLOR_SCHEME=green
#local COLOR_SCHEME=magenta
#local COLOR_SCHEME=blue
#local COLOR_SCHEME=yellow
#local COLOR_SCHEME=white

### Leave these alone, unless you want the sky grass and the green blue =)
local NOBOLD="\033[0m"
local BOLD="\033[1m"
local BLACK="\033[30m"
local GREY="\033[0m"
local RED="\033[31m"
local GREEN="\033[32m"
local YELLOW="\033[33m"
local BLUE="\033[34m"
local MAGENTA="\033[35m"
local CYAN="\033[36m"
local WHITE="\033[37m"

case "$COLOR_SCHEME" in

black|BLACK)
local COLOR=$WHITE
;;
grey|GREY)
local COLOR=$WHITE
;;
red|RED)
local COLOR=$RED
;;
green|GREEN)
local COLOR=$GREEN
;;
yellow|YELLOW)
local COLOR=$YELLOW
;;
blue|BLUE)
local COLOR=$BLUE
;;
magenta|MAGENTA)
local COLOR=$MAGENTA
;;
cyan|CYAN)
local COLOR=$CYAN
;;
white|WHITE)
export COLOR=$WHITE
;;

esac

local COLOR1="\[$NOBOLD$COLOR\]"
local COLOR2="\[$BOLD$COLOR\]"
local COLOR3="\[$BOLD$BLACK\]"
local COLOR4="\[$GREY\]"
local GRAD1="\$(cut -f4 -d\ /proc/loadavg| cut -f2 -d/)"
local GRAD2="\$(echo \`users | wc --words\`)"
local GRAD3="\$(cut -f1 -d\ /proc/loadavg)"
local TTY="\$(tty|cut -d/ -f3)"
local TIME="\t"
local DATE="\d"
local PDP="$COLOR2)$COLOR1$DASH$COLOR2("
### PVL wil draw extra stuff from /proc/loadavg .. anyone know FreeBSD equiv?? =)
local PVL="$PDP$COLOR1$GRAD1$COLOR3/$COLOR1$GRAD2$COLOR3 /$COLOR1$GRAD3"

PS1="\n$COLOR3$OPENRIGHT$COLOR1$DASH$COLOR2($COLOR 1\u$COLOR3@$COLOR1\h$PDP$COLOR1\#$COLOR3/$COLOR1$T TY$PDP$COLOR1$TIME$COLOR3:$COLOR1$DATE$PVL$COLOR2) $COLOR1$DASH$COLOR3$DASH$COLOR3$CLOSERIGHT$COLOR1$ DASH$COLOR2($COLOR1\w$COLOR2)$COLOR1$DASH$COLOR3$D ASH$COLOR4 "
PS2="$COLOR2$DASH$COLOR1$DASH$COLOR3$DASH$COLOR4 "