Based on my last blog entry, I thought I would give you some tips on personalizing your bash prompt. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time and I find it makes using your terminal more simple and a bit more fun.
Let’s create a yellow prompt that says URHERE:. To do this do this we will be using some different characters (and combinations therein) not used in a standard prompt. All of the below will be written within your ~/.bashrc file.
The command to get this new, unique prompt looks like:
PS1=’\[\033[1;33m\]URHERE: \w \[\033[0m\] ‘
What does this mean? Let’s tear it apart and find out. The first sequence, `\[033[1;33m\] does the following:
- ‘ - begin the string
- \[ - begin a string of non-printing characters
- \ - escape character preserving the literal value of the next character(s)
- 033 - ascii code for the escape key
- [ - used to separate the sequences
- 1;33m - defines the color yellow
- \w - adds the full path to the current working directory
- \] - ends the string of non-printing characters
The next section, URHERE:, prints our message URHERE followed by the : symbol and a space for clarity. The final section, \[033[0m\]‘, ends our prompt with the following:
- \] - begin a string of non-printing characters
- \ - escape character preserving the literal value of the next character(s)
- 033 - ascii code for the escape key
- [ - used to separate the sequences
- 0m - ends the color definition
- \] - ends the string of non-printing characters
And there you have it. Of course you can customize this even further by changing colors or (of course) printed messages. To change the colors you will use the following strings:
- 1;37m White
- 37m Light Gray
- 1;30m Gray
- 30m Black
- 31m Red
- 1;31m Light Red
- 32m Green
- 1;32m Light Green
- 33m Brown
- 1;33m Yellow
- 34m Blue
- 1;34m Light Blue
- 35m Purple
- 1;35m Pink
- 36m Cyan
- 1;36m Light Cyan
Are you a bash junkie?
One area I find color useful is to define various machines and their purposes. When logged into more than one machine I like to be able to tell which machine I’m working with (before I run the one command, on the wrong machine, that could bring down the entire network.) Because of this, I will chose a color scheme such as:
- Blue = mail server
- Yellow = ftp server
- Red = firewall
- Green = Workstation
That way I always know which machine I’m about to send a command to.
Do you have your own personal bash prompt configurations? Let us know in the comments below.
