How to make ZSH the default shell?

Question

I am trying to set ZSH as my default shell, however it keeps reverting back to bash.

I have tried this code:

sudo chsh -s $(which zsh)

I've also tried:

sudo chsh -s /bin/zsh

Also tried these commands without sudo. Any ideas on what else I need to do. When running ZSH from within bash it loads up and works fine but I'd like to set it as the default shell.

score 614 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 10 '19 at 19:08

614

Just using chsh:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

without sudo should work. If you use sudo it will change the shell not for your working user but for root

Finally, log out of your computer and log back in.

Troubleshooting:

Do you have zsh installed (ii)? dpkg -l zsh
Is your shell set to zsh? Last field of grep $USER /etc/passwd
Is Zsh a valid login shell? grep zsh /etc/shells

edited Mar 10 '19 at 19:08

Pablo Bianchi

17,371

answered May 05 '12 at 03:55

Florian Diesch

89,643

score 79 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

79

I found this on superuser forum

Open /etc/passwd:

sudo vi /etc/passwd

Find the line with your username:

username:x:1634231:100:Your Name:/home/username:/bin/bash

and replace bash with zsh:

username:x:1634231:100:Your Name:/home/username:/bin/zsh

Log out and log in back for the changes to take effect.

edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

Community

1

answered Aug 11 '15 at 05:29

Shailesh Kalamkar

899
6
3

score 53 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 22 '24 at 02:39

53

You may also do this:

open your bashrc file in your favourite editor

nano ~/.bashrc

then add the line below top of the file

exec zsh

It will execute the command every time you load the terminal and run your zsh shell.

edited Mar 22 '24 at 02:39

muru

207,228

answered Mar 11 '16 at 15:10

Saddam H

679

score 21 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 13 '18 at 14:01

21

I had an issue with permissions to change shell under the current user but next helps me (you should set correct 'zsh' folder for your computer):

sudo chsh -s /bin/zsh <myUserName>

answered Jul 13 '18 at 14:01

Rib47

699

jbp · Answer 5 · 2014-01-27T01:04:37.623

4

If zsh is not /bin/zsh then chsh won't work. On Ubuntu it is /usr/bin/zsh. so doing chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh or chsh -s `which zsh` should work. Also need to re-login to desktop session.

edited Jan 27 '14 at 01:04

answered Jan 27 '14 at 00:58

jbp

149

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 28 '19 at 23:01

As well as chsh (or editing /etc/passwd, which does the same thing), you might need to edit the settings in your terminal emulator (Gnome terminal, Konsole, xfce4-terminal, etc). Your profile will probably have a login shell, which will be run when you open a new tab instead of the shell in /etc/passwd.
In Konqueror it's Settings | Edit Current Profile | Command.

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Oct 21 '17 at 00:38

2

Strange, the "accepted" answer didn't work for me as I got

chsh: PAM: Authentication failure

To solve this issue edit your /etc/passwd and make sure it points to the zsh location. (You can find this by running "which zsh") In my case my user called "webmaster" looked like this:

webmaster:x:1001:1001:webmaster,,,:/var/www/webmaster:/usr/bin/zsh

edited Oct 21 '17 at 00:38

wjandrea

14,504

answered Dec 19 '14 at 13:59

John Crawford

280

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 10 '25 at 17:42

If you are using sssd for Active Directory integration, then you will need to edit /etc/sssd/sssd.conf. Set default_shell to the value of your choice, e.g. /usr/bin/zsh. Also, look at the shell_fallback and override_shell options documented at https://linux.die.net/man/5/sssd.conf Ideally, however, your domain admin would configure the attributes on your user profile in AD.

How to make ZSH the default shell?

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