preserve my env in linux screen

Question

I have serveral customized environment variables and functions in my ~/.bash_profile which I would like to be called automatically when I start my screen session with screen -D -R, but apparently adding source ~/.bash_profile in ~/.screenrc doesn't solve my issue.

On every new screen I have to manually source the bash_profile.

I have noticed that this file can't be found while creating a new screen (when you create new screen there is the the line in the bottom showing what commands are executing and it returns that the file can't be found.)

Answer 1

~/.bash_profile is only run by login shells.

~/.bashrc is run by other interactive shells, such as those started by screen.

~/.screenrc is a screen configuration file, and is not used to configure bash.

Put things that should be set up per shell in ~/.bashrc, and add source ~/.bashrc to your ~/.bash_profile.

Answer 2

You can try configuring screen to run a login-shell by default.

Screen runs a sub-shell, unless told otherwise (See "shell" .screenrc command). Example .screenrc entry to run a login-shell:

shell -$SHELL