FreeBSD: Customize Home, Del, Insert keys for BASH shell

by nixcraft on December 1, 2004 · 12 comments

By default when you use FreeBSD's BASH shell and if you hit Home, Del, Insert keys all of them just prints ~ (some garbage is printed ). To get rid of this problem, edit /etc/profile file and define key binding.

1) Open your bash global profile file:
# vi /etc/profile

2) Add following line to it:
export INPUTRC=/usr/local/etc/inputrc

3) Close and save the file

4) Open the file /usr/local/etc/inputrc and define / modify key binding:
# vi /usr/local/etc/inputrc

5) Append following config data:

set meta-flag on
set input-meta on
set convert-meta off
set output-meta on
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[4~": end-of-line
"\e[5~": beginning-of-history
"\e[6~": end-of-history
"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[2~": quoted-insert
"\e[5C": forward-word
"\e[5D": backward-word

6) Close and save the file

7) Now logout and login back again to test your new key settings.

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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

1 BOK July 20, 2005

And another one:
“x7F”: backward-delete-char

PS Nice hints ‘n tips on your site!

Reply

2 PotatoSalad July 17, 2006

You can just copy /usr/compat/linux/etc/inputrc to /etc/inputrc and add “export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc” to /etc/profile. Not sure if everyone has the /usr/compat/linux/etc/inputrc file, though. I’m on FreeBSD 6.1

Reply

3 nixcraft July 18, 2006

PotatoSalad,

I am also not sure about freebsd 4.x. If you have the file just copy and use it :)

Reply

4 Dan Dascalescu November 29, 2006

BTW, it’s
“\x7F”: backward-delete-char

Forget the backslash like BOK and your keyboard will be crippled off the ‘x’ key

Reply

5 kace September 20, 2007

Don’t forget the ‘ctl-v’ trick though. (I mentioned it here.) I’ve found some of those codes are different on different keyboards/machines!

Reply

6 Steve Kamerman September 26, 2007

WOW! Thanks – I just switched two dedicated servers from Fedora Core 4 to FreeBSD 6.1 and this was driving me crazy!!!

Here’s some more handy things to put in your /etc/profile


alias pico="nano -w"
alias slocate="locate"
alias cd..="cd .."
export EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/nano
export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc

Reply

7 Dagur March 5, 2008

It’s also worth noting that if you don’t have permission to edit /etc/inputrc you can at least create a .inputrc file in your home directory

Reply

8 BK May 4, 2008

great!

Reply

9 Robvdl May 25, 2008

Thanks a lot, that fixed the keys in bash, but there’s one more: the END key in the nano editor doesn’t work.

How would I get that going?

Reply

10 uhoo November 16, 2009

Thanks, but…
How to do this in (T)cshell ? I’ve no the program ‘export’.
I’m freebsd 7.1.

Reply

11 Giofe December 21, 2010

it works very well on bash – Solaris 10.

Reply

12 diegomichel January 25, 2011

Thanks alot, i got a vps with freebsd and have been hard just because this issue, now even the paste and copy from mouse works perfectly.

Reply

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