Sindhu S
sindhus@live.in 2013
Ekaterina Gerasimova
kittykat3756@gmail.com 2013-2014
Michael Hill
mdhillca@gmail.com 2013
Start a login shell in Terminal.
Sami Jaktholm
sjakthol@outlook.com 2014

# Login shells

Shells in UNIX based systems can be started up in login and non-login modes:

# Login shell

A login shell is a shell given to a user upon login into their user account. This is initiated by using the -l or --login option, or placing a dash as the initial character of the command name, for example invoking bash as -bash.

# Sub shell

Sub shell, also called a non-login shell is a shell started after the login process without the -l or --login option and without an extra dash before the command name.

The general cases for having a login shell include:

Accessing your computer remotely using ssh.

Simulating an initial login shell with bash -l or sh -l.

Simulating an initial root login shell with sudo -i.

# Start a login shell

You can allow Terminal to start a login shell. Your default shell will be started with a dash character prepended to its name.

Press the menu button in the top-right corner of the window and select Preferences.

In the sidebar, select your current profile in the Profiles section.

Select Command.

Under the Command label, select Run command as a login shell.