This is my repository for my BASH configurations. This is generally a more simple setup because I tend to use ZSH for the machines I interact directly with and BASH as the default for everything else. For this reason this setup needs to be more consistent, stable, and less complex. With one minor caveat, that it uses bash-it to simply more complex configurations. My old, manually configured, and very messy bash configs will be maintained in the old branch if you'd like to see them.
Bash-It is a distribution of bash configurations and scripts that make configuring this arcane shell in a much more manageable way. It's also a massive community so I can be reasonably assured that at least the more popular features are going to be well tested. My biggest concern is that it might be slow on some of the slowest devices I use BASH on, namely my Raspberry Pi Zeros. But for now this will be my default configuration.
This repository has a Dockerfile that builds a basic Debian contaienr to test the configurations in. In the ./scripts/ directory there's a script test-env.sh that will build the image and interactively run its resulting container with this repositories files pointed to by a bound volume to the Root user's bash dotfiles directory (/root/.dots/bash). The docker file creates symlinks for the Root user's .bashrc and .bash_profile files.
When the test-env.sh script is run you end up in the Root user's home, the linked .bashrc will look exactly like bashrc.bash here and /root/.dots/bash will look exactly like this repository and all changes on the developer machine running this container will be reflected there as well.
Clone this repository into whatever directory is used to store dotfiles.
mkdir ~/.dots # Where I store my dotfiles
git clone https://github.com/marcus-grant/dots-bash ~/.dots/bashThen just link the bashrc & bash_profile files to this repository's bashrc.bash & bashprofile.bash files respectively. Optionally you may also want to backup your old config files before doing this.
mv ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc.bak
mv ~/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile.bak
ln -sf ~/.dots/bash/bashrc.bash ~/.bashrc
ln -sf ~/.dots/bash/bashprofile.bash ~/.bash_profileThis should be done automatically by .bash_profile. However, if trying this from a fresh bashrc run the container using scripts/test-env.sh and run these commands.
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/Bash-it/bash-it.git $DOTS_DIR_BASH/bash-itThis is what the bash_profile will do if it can't detect BASH_IT pointing to a directory, ie the one bash-it normally expects. DOTS_DIR_BASH is an environment variable that is exported early in bashprofile and it's the location of the dotfiles directory where
This configuration uses basher to manage common BASH scripts and helper programs, many of which with plugins that bash-it enhances. The bash_profile will check if the folder containing the basher files pointed to by BASHER_ROOT is empty. If it is, it will set BASHER_ROOT to $DOTS_DIR/basher. Then it will clone the files to it. BASHER_PREFIX can be used to set a global location like /opt or /usr/local and basher will install binaries to $BASHER_PREFIX/bin and program files to $BASHER_PREFIX/packages.
After using Bash-It for a while I've determined it's just not for me, at least Bash-It in Bash. For one Bash-It doesn't support persisting its setup through configuration files. To enable completions, aliases and plugins you have to interact with it through the CLI. I use ansible to automate setups so this is already a non-starter. Also the distribution is massive, I honestly wish I didn't include it into the git graph, but it's not the end of the world. Instead I'll be using it for a template to follow.
I've also decided the three principle I want in v3:
- Simplicity
- Keep it simple, this isn't a shell I'll be using on my every day interactive machines, this will mostly go on servers, mobile devices, and IoT devices like Pis. It needs to be easily configured and fixed when problems arise
- Reliability
- Along with simplicity comes reliability, simplicity is more reliable. But as a principle on its own, since servers will use this configuration they need to be reasonably assured they'll run without problems.
- Speed
- Because embedded and mobile devices will use this configuration it's very important that speed isn't an issue. Espeically important with
git statusbeing used in prompts. Pi Zeroes can take entire seconds to draw the prompt. Even though selectors in the configuration makes it less simple this is one area where it should be considered.
- Because embedded and mobile devices will use this configuration it's very important that speed isn't an issue. Espeically important with
- Conformity
- One of the things I like about Bash-It & Oh-My-ZSH is that they follow community best practices for naming, command conventions and best practices. When copying over functionality try and follow these public conventions as closely as possible.
Once I'm reasonably sure I've tried all the plugins, completions and plugins and then written them into this dotfile set, I'll probably move on to version 4 of my dotfiles and purge Bash-It and Basher from my git history.
One of the most important uses for a custom shell is having useful shorthands for common commands that can get tedious to type out in full. Here is a section of these aliases that get used. Warning, may not be exhaustive.
These are the generic system aliases with no dependencies. It will also attempt to set ls colors dependant on the host system. MacOS for example uses ls -G over ls --color=auto instead.
| Alias | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
| l | ls -a | A compact directory view, -a all types of file/dir references |
| la | ls -AF | Compact directory view, -A for all except implied . .. and -F to append filetype indicator. No symbol = file, / for dirs, @ for symlinks, etc. |
| l1 | ls -1 | Shows exactly what ls shows, but 1 per line as a list without extra info |
| ll | ls -ahl | Shows all (a) in human-readable form (h) as a list (l) |
| lt | ll -t | Same as ll but sorted by time, newest first |
| ltr | lt -r | Same as lt but reverse order, oldest first |
| lz | ll -S | Same as ll but sorted by size, largest first |
| lzra | lz -r | Same as lz but reverse order, smallest first |
| catt | ls or cat | Either views item with ls if directory, or cat if file |
| .. | cd .. | Shorthand for cd .. in a shorter form |
| ... | ..; .. | Same as .. but goes up two levels of parent directories |
| .... | ...; .. | Same as ... but goes up three levels of parent directories |
| tree | tree | If tree isn't installed, uses find & sed to do the same thing |
| md | mkdir -p | A quick way to type out a tree of directories to add in one cmd |
| rd | rmdir | A quick way to delete directories |
| _ | sudo | A really short way to type sudo |
| q | exit | Shorthand for exiting the current shell |
| h | history | Shorthand for history command |
| edit | $EDITOR | Edits with the default editor defined in EDITOR environment variable |
| ebrc | edit ~/.bashrc | Edit the bash config with default EDITOR |
| ebpf | $edit ~/.bash_profile | Edit the bash profile with default EDITOR |
| rbrc | source ~/.basrc; | Reload bash configs, useful for editing configurations |
| sedit | sudo $EDITOR | Use default EDITOR with sudo priveleges |
| svim | sudo vim | Use vim with sudo |
| snvim | sudo nvim | Use nvim with sudo |
| snano | sudo nano | Use nano with sudo |
| semacs | sudo emacs | Use emacs with sudo |
| grep | grep --color=auto | Default to automatic grep coloring, gets checked against host ability for color |
| grepc | grep --color=always | Force grep to use colors, programs need to know it's colored so it's its own alias |
| grepl | grep $@ \ | less |
| tm | See Desc | Starts tmux session 'main' if not present, or just attaches to it |
| tma | tmux (attach) | Attaches to a given named sessions |
| tmn | tmux (new) | New tmux session |
| tml | tmux (list) | List tmux sessions |
| tmk | tmux (kill) | Kill tmux sessions |
| py | python3 or python | Shorthand for python3 if it exists otherwise python |
| ipy | ipython3 or python | Same as py but referencing ipython3 or ipython |
| pip | pip3 | Overrides pip3 if it exists, otherwise it does nothing |
| rb | ruby | Shorthand for ruby |
| xt | extract | Shorthand for the extract decompression helper script |
| ar | archive | Shorthand for the archive compression helper script |
Some basic aliases for SystemD's systemctl command, because typing them out can be irritating especially since you rarely need to use just one. All of them are prefixed with sc.
| Alias | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
| sc | systemctl | Shorthand for a lone systemctl command |
| scu | sc --user | Shorthand for systemctl with --user flag |
| scdr | sc daemon-reload | Calls systemctl with daemon-reload sub-command |
| scdru | scr --user | Calls systemctl with daemon-reload sub-command & --user flag |
| scr | sc restart | Calls systemctl with restart sub-command to restart a service |
| scru | scu restart | Calls systemctl with restart sub-command & --user flag |
| sct | sc stop | Calls systemctl with stop sub-command to stop a service |
| sctu | scu stop | Calls systemctl with stop sub-command & --user flag |
| scs | sc start | Calls systemctl with start sub-command to start a service |
| scsu | scu start | Calls systemctl with start sub-command & --user |
| scus | scsu | Misspelling alias for scsu |
| scur | scdru | Misspelling alias for scdru |
| scut | sctu | Misspelling alias for sctu |