Completely restart Bash

Question

Is there a way to completely restart Bash and reload .bashrc and .profile and the like? I'd like to make sure my changes worked out properly after editing these files.

score 42 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 16 '11 at 22:09

42

Have it replace itself with itself.

exec bash -l

Note that this won't affect things such as the cwd or exported variables.

answered Oct 16 '11 at 22:09

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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Nice, but I'd especially like to do this in order to check and see if my `PATH` is being set as I want or my `PS1`, etc. – Naftuli Kay Oct 16 '11 at 22:35
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Take out the `exec` and you get a shell that sources the files that you want. Then just `exit` when you are done checking. – Arcege Oct 17 '11 at 00:20
@TK: Any variables you *assign* will take precedence over the ones left over from the previous shell. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Oct 17 '11 at 03:23
So this will work for changing my Bash prompt? Ie, it'll reload my bash prompt each time I run it? – Naftuli Kay Oct 17 '11 at 03:35
As long as you're setting `$PS1` in bash's startup files, yes. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Oct 17 '11 at 03:40
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On my screen in Firefox, l (the letter ell) and 1 (the numeral one) look similar. This is bash dash ell, not bash dash one. – Elliptical view Nov 22 '17 at 22:48
@Elipticalview: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Inconsolata – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Nov 22 '17 at 22:50
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It would be nice if the answer included what the `-l` does to save time looking it up. – Dan Nissenbaum May 30 '20 at 00:39

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 17 '11 at 09:07

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I urgently suggest to log in on a separate window/screen. This way you still have a working session if something goes wrong with your changes to startup files. Also you are sure to have a clean environment.

Reason: I saw too many people locking themselves out of a system because of a simple typo in their .profile (or such).

answered Oct 17 '11 at 09:07

ktf

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+10, a clean shell where you can change edits is essential. – Sardathrion - against SE abuse Oct 17 '11 at 13:17
I'm in a DE, so it shouldn't be so bad, Bauhaus yes, be careful. – Naftuli Kay Oct 17 '11 at 17:12

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 16 '11 at 22:26

If your goal is simply to read the modified files again, you don't have to restart it. You can simply source it.

source filename

or

. filename # notice the dot

Note that this won't give you a "clean state" in a sense that it won't unset any set variables or defined functions...

rozcietrzewiacz · Answer 4 · 2011-10-17T12:36:21.047

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su -l yourOwnUserName

Will open a fresh shell for yourOwnUserName user with all the settings re-loaded. This is shell-independent, as it refers to system settings, not your specific shell. It also loads some system-wide settings that bash -l does not (like user groups).

edited Oct 17 '11 at 12:36

answered Oct 17 '11 at 12:19

rozcietrzewiacz

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important note: "a fresh shell" here means a shell within your existing shell, so you are only nesting shells, not replacing your original one. The accepted answer does that properly. – underscore_d Sep 24 '15 at 00:40

Completely restart Bash

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