MacPorts installer only modifies profile of current user

[1handle@…]

I've two accounts on the computer. The port of bash was successful from the account the port command was issued from, but this port had no impact on the second account. The port created .profile in the account that worked; that file appends two required paths to $PATH. In contrast, no similar file was created for the second account.

To recover, I updated the existing .bash_profile in the second adding the two paths. The two paths are: /opt/local/bin and /opt/local/sbin.

There was no indication neither during, nor at the conclusion of the port that there was a problem or even a concern. Further, I suspect this is a product of being my first attempt to install a port and had nothing to do with bash itself.

[1handle@…]

Cc Me!

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

It is the MacPorts installer, not bash or any other port, that modifies the profile of the currently-logged-in user. You are correct, the installer will not attempt to modify the files of any other user account, either currently existing or added in the future. This is functioning as designed, though you may be correct that we don't sufficiently explain that fact. For example we could improve the guide here:

​http://guide.macports.org/#installing.shell

And the installer readme here:

trunk/base/portmgr/dmg/ReadMe.rtf​

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Duplicate of #24930.