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Accepted
Johannes Ernst
Asked: 2015-06-24 10:16:12 +0800 CST

Change shell prompt based on container name?

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I have been doing a lot of work using Linux containers, and I keep forgetting which of the terminals on my screen is running inside which container, particularly when I leave them open overnight.

How can I change the shell prompt, or the terminal title based on the container that the shell runs in?

This is a general question, but it'd be great if it worked for systemd-nspawn and kde on Arch.

linux

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Make sure your containers use distinct UTS namespaces then set a unique hostname in each one. For instance, things like docker set the hostname value to the container hash ID as a default in the UTS namespace associated with the main container process.

    Thus with a PS1 pattern using the hostname variable you will know in which container you are when running a bash prompt.

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