When you execute commands in non login shell like ssh server command or scp file server:~ or sudo(without -i) or su (without -l) it will execute ~/.bashrc

open a login shell which sources ~/.bash_profile

The point of the .bashrc file is that it sets the shell up to be more convenient for interactive users. Helpful alias, pretty colors, useful prompts, common environment variables, that sort of thing. And some of these conveniences could break non-interactive scripts.

The main benefit I can see to having .bashrc sourced when running a (non-interactive) remote command is that shell functions can be run. However, most of the commands in a typical .bashrc are only relevant in an interactive shell

I discovered that remote shells are treated differently. While non-interactive Bash shells don’t normally run ~/.bashrc commands at start-up, a special case is made when the shell is Invoked by remote shell daemon:

This has the consequence that if the .bashrc contains any commands that print to standard output, file transfers will fail, e.g, scp fails without error.

COMMAND EXECUTE BASHRC -------------------------------- bash -c foo NO bash foo NO foo NO rsh machine ls YES (for rsh, which calls `bash -c') rsh machine foo YES (for shell started by rsh) NO (for foo!) echo ls | bash NO login NO bash YES

If you want happy cow messages when you login change your bash_profile.

AFAIK, the right way to enable un-hindered scp is less about which conditional for stdout in your ~/.bashrc script, and more about simply restricting screen output to the ~/.bash_profile script. At least that is how it works for my distro (CentOS.) Edit for clarity: Put only lines in your ~/.bashrc file as required by "all" remote conections