Setup, change and pimp out Linux / UNIX shell prompt

By default most distro displays hostname and current working directory. Prompt is control via a special shell variable. You need to set PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 variable. If set, the value is executed as a command prior to issuing each primary prompt.
* PS1 - The value is expanded and used as the primary prompt string. The default value is \s-\v\$ .
* PS2 - The value is expanded as with PS1 and used as the secondary prompt string. The default is >
* PS3 - The value is used as the prompt for the select command
* PS4 - The value expanded as with PS1 and the value is printed before each command bash displays during an execution trace. The first character of PS4 is replicated multiple times, as necessary, to indicate multiple levels of indirection. The default is +

To display current prompt setting:
$ echo $PS1

The prompt can be changed by assigning a new value to PS1.When executing interactively, bash displays the primary prompt PS1 when it is ready to read a command, and the secondary prompt PS2 when it needs more input to complete a command. Bash allows these prompt strings to be customized by inserting a number of backslash-escaped special characters that are decoded as follows:
* \a : an ASCII bell character (07)
* \d : the date in "Weekday Month Date" format (e.g., "Tue May 26")
* \D{format} : the format is passed to strftime(3) and the result is inserted into the prompt string; an empty format results in a locale-specific time representation. The braces are required
* \e : an ASCII escape character (033)
* \h : the hostname up to the first '.'
* \H : the hostname
* \j : the number of jobs currently managed by the shell
* \l : the basename of the shell’s terminal device name
* \n : newline
* \r : carriage return
* \s : the name of the shell, the basename of $0 (the portion following the final slash)
* \t : the current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format
* \T : the current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format
* \@ : the current time in 12-hour am/pm format
* \A : the current time in 24-hour HH:MM format
* \u : the username of the current user
* \v : the version of bash (e.g., 2.00)
* \V : the release of bash, version + patch level (e.g., 2.00.0)
* \w : the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
* \W : the basename of the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
* \! : the history number of this command
* \# : the command number of this command
* \$ : if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $
* \nnn : the character corresponding to the octal number nnn
* \\ : a backslash
* \[ : begin a sequence of non-printing characters, which could be used to embed a terminal control sequence into the prompt
* \] : end a sequence of non-printing characters

To display today’d date and hostname in the prompt:
PS1="\d \h $ "
Sat Jun 02 server $

Now setup prompt to display date/time, hostname and current directory:
$ PS1="[\d \t \u@\h:\w ]
$ " [Sat Jun 02 14:24:12 vivek@server:~ ] $

To add colors to prompt. For example, open /etc/bashrc (Redhatish) / or /etc/bash.bashrc (Debian) or /etc/bash.bashrc.local (Suse) file and append following code:

# If id command returns zero, you’ve root access.
if [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then # root goes red
prompt PS1="\\[$(tput setaf 1)\\]\\u@\\h:\\w #\\[$(tput sgr0)\\]"
else # normal
PS1="[\\u@\\h:\\w] $"
fi

Of course, you can include whatever you like in the prompt. For example, when I switch to root:


To add colors to the shell prompt use the following export command syntax:
'\e[x;ym $PS1 \e[m'

* \e[ Start color scheme
* x;y Color pair to use (x;y)
* $PS1 is your shell prompt
* \e[m Stop color scheme

To set a red color prompt:
$ export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h \W]\$ \e[m "

Color Code
Black 0;30
Blue 0;34
Green 0;32
Cyan 0;36
Red 0;31
Purple 0;35
Brown 0;33

Replace digit 0 with 1 to get light color version.

To make the prompt setting permanent, add above export command to your .bash_profile file or .bashrc file.
export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h \W]\$ \e[m"

You can also use tput command. For example display RED prompt use tput as follows:
export PS1="\[$(tput setaf 1)\]\u@\h:\w $ \[$(tput sgr0)\]"

handy tput commands:
* tput bold - Bold effect
* tput rev - Display inverse colors
* tput sgr0 - Reset everything
* tput setaf {CODE}- Set foreground color, see color {CODE} below
* tput setab {CODE}- Set background color, see color {CODE} below

Colors {code} code for tput command
0 Black
1 Red
2 Green
3 Yellow
4 Blue
5 Magenta
6 Cyan
7 White

Read the man page of bash and tput for more information.