You want a command to run automatically whenever a user ends a console login session, for example to clear the screen. Which file should contain it?
LPIC-1 Exam 102-500, objective 105. Shells and shell scripting easy
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How these questions are written — where each question comes from, what the verification ledger records, and what happens when one is found wrong.
The options
Correct ~/.bash_logout
Correct. Bash executes ~/.bash_logout when a login shell exits, which is exactly the end of a console or SSH login session.
Not correct ~/.bash_history
Wrong. That file stores the command history bash writes out on exit. It is data, not a script, and nothing in it is executed.
Not correct ~/.bashrc
Wrong. ~/.bashrc is read at the start of every interactive non-login shell, not at the end of anything.
Not correct ~/.bash_profile
Wrong. ~/.bash_profile runs at the beginning of a login shell. It is the counterpart to ~/.bash_logout, not a substitute for it.
Why
~/.bash_logout is the only one of the standard bash startup files that runs on the way out, and only for login shells: closing a terminal window that held a non-login shell does not trigger it. A system-wide equivalent exists on many distributions as /etc/bash.bash_logout. Because the shell is in the middle of exiting, avoid anything long-running there.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- manual page bash(1)
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a short set from objective 105 and space the ones you get wrong.
More questions on this objective
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