A .cshrc.$HOST File for Per Host Setup (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

3.18. 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 or a MacOS X box. 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 Section 35.3

setenv HOST "`uname -n`"

~ Section 31.11

if (-e ~/lib/cshrc.hosts/cshrc.$HOST) then
   source ~/lib/cshrc.hosts/cshrc.$HOST
endif

So, if I log in to a machine named (Section 2.5) bosco, and I have a file called ~/lib/cshrc.hosts/cshrc.bosco, I can source (Section 35.29) it to customize my environment for that one machine. These are examples of things you would put in a .cshrc.$HOST file:

Search path (Section 27.6): Some machines have /usr/local/bin, and some have /opt. The same goes for cdpath (Section 31.5).
Terminal settings (Section 5.8): 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 (Section 35.9) and environment variables (Section 35.3): These 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 or if statements throughout your .cshrc and .login files. The principle carries over directly to the newer shells as well.

--DS and SJC