The difference between .bashrc, .bash_profile, .profile etc.

December 12, 2018 / bash, linux, shell

/etc/profile

System-wide initialisation file, executed when an login shell starts.

~/.bash_profile

Personal initialisation file, executed when an login shell starts.

~/.bashrc

Personal startup file, executed when an interactive shell starts and is not a login shell.

~/.bash_logout

Personal cleanup file, executed when a login shell exits.

~/.profile

Quoting from the file itself:

Executed by the command interpreter for login shells.
This file is not read by bash(1), if ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login exists.

For different shells, the bash-specific filenames are modified accordingly, e.g. ~/ash_profile in ash shell

To avoid duplicate commands and get around shell-specific differences, users often call one file from another, especially in the case of .bashrc and .bash_profile.