[cpac]

Hey everybody:

So I open Terminal and normally the prompt looks like this:

[Telemachos:~] cpac%

Telemachos is the name of my computer, and cpac is my user name.

Now, frequently after being on a windows network for a while, I get a different prompt when opening the terminal. Currently, for instance, it looks like this:

[hernandezj:~] cpac%

So what's the deal? What does that initial word indicate? Do I need to hunt down J. Hernandez and kill him?

[Arkham_c]

You can set your prompt to whatever you like. The default for tcsh is:

PS1=[\u@\h \w]

\u is the user, \h is the host, \w is the working directory.

I use bash, and I have my prompt set as follows:

export PS1="[\u@\h \w] "

which is essentially the same thing. You can do some funky prompts though. For example:

export PS1="\[\e[1;37m\][\[\e[1;33m\]\u@\h \e[1;32m\]\w\[\e[1;37m\]]\[\e[0;37m\] "

That will give you all kinds of nifty colors.

Look at the man pages for your shell and grep for "PS".

[Rickster]

As for the changing hostname, the default config on OS X sets it based on your IP address. Except the BSD notion of hostname (in which there can be only one) predates the modern era of multilink/multihoming mobile networking (in which you might have several addresses or only the Rendezvous-provided one). So, the BSD hostname is liable to change when you reboot on different networks (or without an external network).

If you find this annoying, you can manually set a hostname by editing /etc/hostconfig: change the line that says HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC- to HOSTNAME=whatever.

[MrBS]

Originally posted by Rickster:
As for the changing hostname, the default config on OS X sets it based on your IP address. Except the BSD notion of hostname (in which there can be only one) predates the modern era of multilink/multihoming mobile networking (in which you might have several addresses or only the Rendezvous-provided one). So, the BSD hostname is liable to change when you reboot on different networks (or without an external network).

If you find this annoying, you can manually set a hostname by editing /etc/hostconfig: change the line that says HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC- to HOSTNAME=whatever.

I followed these instructions exactly and now my terminal looks like this:

[whatever:~] bs%

Why is my mac so apathetic now and accusatory now?

~BS

[edit: sorry, it's late. back to cramming]

[Lew]

Originally posted by MrBS:

Originally posted by Rickster:
As for the changing hostname, the default config on OS X sets it based on your IP address. Except the BSD notion of hostname (in which there can be only one) predates the modern era of multilink/multihoming mobile networking (in which you might have several addresses or only the Rendezvous-provided one). So, the BSD hostname is liable to change when you reboot on different networks (or without an external network).

If you find this annoying, you can manually set a hostname by editing /etc/hostconfig: change the line that says HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC- to HOSTNAME=whatever

I followed these instructions exactly and now my terminal looks like this:

[whatever:~] bs%

Why is my mac so apathetic now and accusatory now?

~BS

[edit: sorry, it's late. back to cramming]

You need to press the 'Any' key

Just kidding. It says that because you edited the line to say "HOSTNAME=whatever". You need to substitute the name you want your computer to show up as for 'whatever'. For example, my hostconfig file says "HOSTNAME=Pismo"