It’s really useful to not only be able to see the user and directory in your prompt but to have different colours for different users/servers – like a different colour for root or production boxes. Here is the code I use – just put it in a .profile in the users’s home directory (or in /etc/profile for globally):
# Set xterm title: SHOSTNAME=`hostname -s` PROMPT_COMMAND='if [ "${TERM}" = "xterm" -o "${TERM}" = "xterm-color" ]; then if [ -n "${XTITLE}" ]; then echo -ne "\033]0;${XTITLE}\007"; else echo -ne "\033]0;[${USER}@${SHOSTNAME}:${PWD}]\007" | sed -e "s@${HOME}@\~@"; fi; fi' # Set Bash Prompt: if [ "$BASH" ]; then PS1='\[\033[1;36m\][\u@\h:\w]\$\[\033[0m\] ' # alias ls='ls --color' else if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then PS1='# ' else PS1='$ ' fi fi export PS1 PROMPT_COMMAND SHOSTNAME
You can change the colours using the following codes:
# Black 0;30 Dark Gray 1;30 # Blue 0;34 Light Blue 1;34 # Green 0;32 Light Green 1;32 # Cyan 0;36 Light Cyan 1;36 # Red 0;31 Light Red 1;31 # Purple 0;35 Light Purple 1;35 # Brown 0;33 Yellow 1;33 # Light Gray 0;37 White 1;37