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

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: February 8, 2008]

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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Discussion on This Article:

  1. BOK Says:

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

    PS Nice hints ‘n tips on your site!

  2. PotatoSalad Says:

    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

  3. nixcraft Says:

    PotatoSalad,

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

  4. Dan Dascalescu Says:

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

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

  5. kace Says:

    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!

  6. Steve Kamerman Says:

    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

  7. Dagur Says:

    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

  8. BK Says:

    great!

  9. Robvdl Says:

    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?

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