Customize Bash Prompt

1. User Specific Configuration

There are different approaches to customize the Bash Prompt. For user specific configuration edit ~/.bashrc and add your customization below the line '# User specific aliases and functions'

This example:

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

will result in the following prompt:

user@hostname.domain.tld:/working/directory$

If you prefer a colorful prompt, try:

PS1='\[\033[02;32m\]\u@\H:\[\033[02;34m\]\w\$\[\033[00m\] '

A detailed description of color codes can be found here.

You can also display the hostname only, instead of the complete url by using 'h' instead of 'H' in the PS1 definition.

2. System-wide Configuration

System-wide configuration is done in /etc/bashrc. Comment out the default settings and add your customization below:

# [ "$PS1" = "\\s-\\v\\\$ " ] && PS1="[\u@\h \w]\\$ "
PS1='\u@\H:\w\$ ' 

3. XTerm

To set the XTerm window title, create a file called

/etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-xterm

with the following content:

echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007"

and make it executable using:

chmod +x /etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-xterm

If you only want to display the hostname instead of the complete url you can change:

${HOSTNAME}

to

${HOSTNAME%%.*}

which will strip all the information after the first '.'