How to reset on Ubuntu the terminal text color back to defaul once a SSH connection is closed

Question

System: Ubuntu 20.04

My goal: change terminal text color when I connect to SSH host and reset the terminal text color once the SSH connection is closed.

Status: I managed to change the text color when I establish the SSH connection (--> How to change terminal colors when connecting to SSH hosts)

.bash_profile

[ -n "$SSH_CONNECTION" ] && echo -e  '\033]10;#ff0000\007'

Problem: The terminal text color is not reset once I close the SSH connection.

Can this be done by editing .bash_profile? How can this be done not following the approach used in the mentioned article?

steeldriver · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-23 19:26:28Z

0

If you only need it to work for non-nested SSH sessions, you could put a corresponding line in your ~/.bash_logout file, for example

[ -n "$SSH_CONNECTION" ] && echo -e  '\033]10;#ffffff\007'

will set the foreground color to white on exit.

answered Sep 23, 2020 at 19:26

steeldriver

136k21 gold badges243 silver badges336 bronze badges

that's it....awesome and pretty easy! and btw. I use nested SSH sessions. I added the line in the ~./bash_logout as proposed on the remote host and on exit the text color is reset. Do you know by the way what those parameter / command switch like "- n", "-f"... mean?
– LaUs3r
Sep 23, 2020 at 20:10
@LaUs3r if you're referring to the -n in the [ ... ] test brackets, they're all documented in the bash shell's internal help under help test. In the case of -n specifically, it tests for a non-empty string.
– steeldriver
Sep 23, 2020 at 21:54
exactly that's what I'm referring to. I will go study that now :)
– LaUs3r
Sep 24, 2020 at 8:29
What I learnt is, that once you put something into the .bash_profile, commands from .bashrcare not executed. Originally I had neofetch executed everytime I start the bash by putting it at the end of .bashrc. Once I created the .bash_profile, it didn't work anymore. I needed to move the line from .bashrc to `.bash_profile
– LaUs3r
Sep 24, 2020 at 8:34
@LaUs3r if ~/.bash_profile exists, bash uses it in preference to ~/.profile. In Ubuntu, the default ~/.profile conditionally sources ~/.bashrc. If you want the same behavior when ~/.profile exists, consider including (i.e. sourcing) $HOME/.profile from your ~/.bash_profile
– steeldriver
Sep 24, 2020 at 11:06

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1