Re: determine when user account created?

From: Barry Margolin (barmar_at_alum.mit.edu)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 21:07:49 -0400

In article <pan.2004.10.28.00.52.33.589222@yahoo.com>,
 Dave Uhring <daveuhring@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:29:39 -0400, Barry Margolin wrote:
>
> > Users modify stuff in their home directories all the time. I would
> > never assume that anything in the user's directory has been untouched
> > since their account was created. Why do you expect a symlink from
> > .bash_profile to .bashrc to stay around?
>
> That symlink, if it were even created in the first place, would be quite
> unlikely to be changed. Of course the user can change any file in his
> home directory, but some are unlikely to be changed, ~/.dtprofile as an
> example.

I recall needing to customize that file occasionally.

>
> I am also aware that backup restores or simply copying with tar from one
> disk to a new disk can cause errors there. For instance,
>
> # ls -la .??*
> -rw-r--r-- 1 username sysadmin 1430 Dec 7 2002 .kshrc
>
> Yet this system was installed Aug 23, 2004.

> OTOH, how many hidden files in *your* home directory were added on the
> date your user account was created and still retain the same date/time?

When I was a heavy Unix user, I modified my dot-files pretty often, e.g.
to add directories to my PATH, or change how I customized my prompt, etc.

Maybe there are some that are almost never changed, but off the top of
my head I can't think which ones they would be.

>
> > I'm not even sure why these
> > would be linked together in the first place, since they serve different
> > purposes -- .bash_profile is only for the login shell, while .bashrc is
> > for every shell.
>
> ~/.bashrc is not sourced at login so apparently it is not for *every*
> instance of shell invocation.

OK, every subshell. Still, I don't think they should normally be linked
together -- there's stuff you only need to do at login time, not in
subshells. Often .bash_profile ends with "source .bashrc" to get that
script executed in the login shell as well. 

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

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