[Chapter 2] 2.13 A .cshrc.$HOST File for Per Host Setup
Author: Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly & Mike Loukides
Date: 1998-08-04T21:32:15Z

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## 2.13 A .cshrc.$HOST File for Per Host Setup

I work with different types of machines every day. It is often necessary to set things up differently for, say, a Linux box, than a SPARCstation. Going beyond that, you may want to set things up differently on a per-host basis.

I have this test in my .cshrc file:

    setenv
    if ~
    setenv HOST "`uname -n`"
    if (-e ~/lib/cshrc.hosts/cshrc.$HOST) then
       source ~/lib/cshrc.hosts/cshrc.$HOST
    endif

So, if I log in to a machine named (50.7) bosco, and I have a file called ~/lib/cshrc.hosts/cshrc.bosco, I can source (44.23) it to customize my environment for that one machine. Examples of things you would put in a .cshrc.$HOST file:

- Search path (8.7): some machines have /usr/local/bin, and some have /opt. The same goes for cdpath (14.5).

- Terminal settings (5.9): I always like to reach for the upper-right part of a keyboard to erase characters. Sometimes this is the location for the BACKSPACE key, and sometimes it is the DELETE key. I set things up so that I can consistently get "erase" behavior from whatever key is there.

- Other shell variables (6.8) and environment variables (6.1) may be different. You may run a package on a certain machine that relies on a few environment variables. No need to always set them and use up a little bit of memory if you only use them in one place!

In general, this idea allows you to group together whatever exceptions you want for a machine, rather than having to write a series of switch (47.6) or if statements (47.3) throughout your .cshrc and .login files.

- DS

2.12 Automatic Setups for Different Terminals |  | 2.14 motd.diff: Show New Lines in Login Messages