You will find a familiar environment, similar to other ECMWF platforms. Bash and Ksh are available as login shells, with Bash being the recommended option.
Note that CSH is not available. If you are still using it, please move to a supported shell.
Changing your shell
If you wish to change your default shell, please let us know via the ECMWF Support Portal and we will implement that change for you.
Once updated, note the change will only affect new sessions opened after it comes into effect.
Shell initialisation and configuration files
By default, none of the following files may be present on your account, and you will get the default settings for the system. However, you may want to customise your environment to add new variables, functions or aliases to your sessions or jobs.
| File | When is it sourced? | Who sources it? | What is it for? |
|---|---|---|---|
$HOME/.profile | each login and job execution | Bash and ksh | Suitable for your own login session settings (e.g. PATH). |
$HOME/.bash_profile | each bash login and job execution | Bash only | Suitable for your own login session settings that must only run once for the session or job (e.g. PATH). It overrides .profile if present |
$HOME/.bashrc | each bash interactive non-login shell | Bash only | Suitable for your own functions and aliases to load for interactive non-login sessions. It is not loaded automatically on login sessions |
$HOME/.bash_logout | each bash exit and end of job | Bash only | Suitable for your own cleanup settings at the end of the session or job |
$HOME/.kshrc | each ksh login and job execution | ksh only | Suitable for your own settings to load for interactive shells |
Suggested settings for Bash users
If bash is your login shell and you would like to customise your environment without having to split content between ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc, you could do the following:
Make sure your
~/.bash_profilecontains the following snippet:~/.bash_profileif [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc fi- Add in your
~/.bashrcall your environment variable definitions, functions and aliases.