Bash on Polaris

From CSLabsWiki

Method 1 (Extreme)

If you'd like to use a non-tcsh shell, you can add the following to your crontab: (The helpdesk's response when I requested a change was "All accounts must be in the standard format, sorry.")

* * * * * echo YOURPASSWORDHERE | chsh -s /bin/bash &> /dev/null

While this may seem terribly insecure, as long as polaris is the only place you use that password, it's "fine" (but certainly not the best solution). Only you and root users (which can access your account anyway) can see your crontab.

The first part of the command ("* * * * *") runs the command every minute. The middle section passes your password into the password prompt and changes your default shell in the /etc/passwd file. The last section passes the output into /dev/null so you don't get mail about the command's completion.

This may seem extreme, but, because of the way polaris is configured, it resets the /etc/passwd file on a regular basis.

Warning

If/when you change your afs password, this script will cause your account to become locked after only a few minutes. If you'd like to avoid a week or two of going back and forth with OIT about why your account gets locked out all the time, only to have them realize you have a crontab entry authenticating every minute with an old password (making you look like an idiot), you may want to consider methods 2 or 3.

Method 2 (For normal people)

If you're normal, you can just create a .tcshrc file (if you don't already have one) in your home directory on polaris. In that file put the following line: /bin/bash

Now, every time you login to polaris you'll automatically be using bash. Yay.

Warning

This method seems to break scp. If you use scp you may want to reference the next method.

Method 3

It seems that the helpdesk will now fulfill requests to change a user's default shell to bash.