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So I am using CentOS 6.3 a fresh install and I was trying to add things to my path for OpenMPI so I edited my .bash_profile file to read:

FOO='test' export FOO # Add support for MPI PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib64/openmpi/bin # User specific environment and startup programs PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin export PATH

Which apparently isn't being read when I start up a bash shell, my $PATH is without the /usr/lib64/openmpi/bin path and FOO doesn't exist when I try to echo $FOO

.bashrc is read just fine and if I do source ~/.bash_profile FOO is created as well as my $PATH being edited properly but it will not run .bash_profile on its own so if I could get any help that would be great.

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Could you describe how do you test these 2 files? Did you try login or non-login shell? Here is the difference:

When you login your system and see the command line prompt, it’s a login shell, and it executes these files in order:

/etc/profile ~/.bash_profile ~/.bashrc /etc/bashrc

A non-login shell will only execute the two files in order:

/etc/bashrc ~/.bashrc

If you just simply start a bash shell by "bash", it is a non-login shell and ~/.bash_profile will not be invoked. If you expect the variables to be set even when running non-login shell, you should put them into ~/.bashrc.

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  • It doesn't execute .bashrc if .bash_profile doesn't say so. On my system, for my account, .bash_profile didn't exist, so .bashrc was never executed. Commented May 26, 2015 at 12:40
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This is normal, .bash_profile is sourced for login shells, .bashrc is sourced for interactive non-login shells. In CentOS the top of .bash_profile usually has:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc fi

So you can put things in .bashrc.

Mac OS X Terminal reads .bash_profile when you open a new windows. gnome-terminal can be made to do that with Run command as a login shell.

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