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# 12.6. Prompt Depending on Connection Type

Bradley M Alexander (storm@tux.org) had the excellent idea of reminding his users what kind of connection they were using to his machine(s), so he colour-codes prompts dependent on connection type. Here's the bashrc he supplied to me:

    # /etc/bashrc

    # System wide functions and aliases
    # Environment stuff goes in /etc/profile

    # For some unknown reason bash refuses to inherit
    # PS1 in some circumstances that I can't figure out.
    # Putting PS1 here ensures that it gets loaded every time.

    # Set up prompts. Color code them for logins. Red for root, white for
    # user logins, green for ssh sessions, cyan for telnet,
    # magenta with red "(ssh)" for ssh + su, magenta for telnet.
    THIS_TTY=tty`ps aux | grep $$ | grep bash | awk '{ print $7 }'`
    SESS_SRC=`who | grep $THIS_TTY | awk '{ print $6 }'`

    SSH_FLAG=0
    SSH_IP=`echo $SSH_CLIENT | awk '{ print $1 }'`
    if [ $SSH_IP ] ; then
      SSH_FLAG=1
    fi
    SSH2_IP=`echo $SSH2_CLIENT | awk '{ print $1 }'`
    if [ $SSH2_IP ] ; then
      SSH_FLAG=1
    fi
    if [ $SSH_FLAG -eq 1 ] ; then
      CONN=ssh
    elif [ -z $SESS_SRC ] ; then
      CONN=lcl
    elif [ $SESS_SRC = "(:0.0)" -o $SESS_SRC = "" ] ; then
      CONN=lcl
    else
      CONN=tel
    fi

    # Okay...Now who we be?
    if [ `/usr/bin/whoami` = "root" ] ; then
      USR=priv
    else
      USR=nopriv
    fi

    #Set some prompts...
    if [ $CONN = lcl -a $USR = nopriv ] ; then
      PS1="[\u \W]\\$ "
    elif [ $CONN = lcl -a $USR = priv ] ; then
      PS1="\[\033[01;31m\][\w]\\$\[\033[00m\] "
    elif [ $CONN = tel -a $USR = nopriv ] ; then
      PS1="\[\033[01;34m\][\u@\h \W]\\$\[\033[00m\] "
    elif [ $CONN = tel -a $USR = priv ] ; then
      PS1="\[\033[01;30;45m\][\u@\h \W]\\$\[\033[00m\] "
    elif [ $CONN = ssh -a $USR = nopriv ] ; then
      PS1="\[\033[01;32m\][\u@\h \W]\\$\[\033[00m\] "
    elif [ $CONN = ssh -a $USR = priv ] ; then
      PS1="\[\033[01;35m\][\u@\h \W]\\$\[\033[00m\] "
    fi

    # PS1="[\u@\h \W]\\$ "
    export PS1
    alias which="type -path"
    alias dir="ls -lF --color"
    alias dirs="ls -lFS --color"
    alias h=history

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