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I added this line into my ~/.bashrc file.

alias myserver='ssh davidfaux@davidfaux.com'

However, when I open terminal and run myserver, terminal complains that

-bash: myserver: command not found

When I source my .bashrc file, however, (. .bashrc), the alias works.

Nonetheless, I do not want to source the file every time I open terminal for the alias to work. How do I make that happen?

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3  
This comment explains the reason for this. That question tells you how to fix it. – ughoavgfhw Mar 4 '12 at 19:35
Thanks a lot! I did not know that starting the shell executes those files in order. Indeed, adding . .bashrc into .bash_profile works. – David Faux Mar 4 '12 at 19:43
@ughoavgfhw can/should you change your comment to an answer? That way it can be marked as an answer. – soxman Mar 5 '12 at 14:14

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

As noted...

By default, Terminal starts the shell via /usr/bin/login, which makes the shell a login shell. On every platform (not just Mac OS X) bash does not use .bashrc for login shells (only /etc/profile and the first of .bash_profile, .bash_login, .profile that exists and is readable). This is why “put source ~/.bashrc in your .bash_profile” is standard advice. – Chris Johnsen

For More information see the manual page for bash. Then look under the INVOCATION section.

man bash
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