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.

quick answer that worked for me: logging out and then logging back in to the desktop session fixed it for me. — aderchox, Jul 13 '20 at 23:27

score 525 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 10 '19 at 19:08

525

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

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answered May 05 '12 at 03:55

Florian Diesch

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I have the same problem and the answer doesn't solve it – Aswin Murugesh Jul 21 '13 at 16:11
@AswinMurugesh Check my answer – Shailesh Kalamkar Aug 11 '15 at 05:30
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you can also run sudo chsh -s /bin/zsh userName – Micha Roon Sep 30 '15 at 10:49
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Note: I had to restart my system before this would take effect. – KevinO Oct 12 '15 at 00:38
no, it did not work. – Haha TTpro Feb 25 '18 at 04:33
@MichaRoon or `chsh username` with or without the `s` flag. Without, the system will ask for the shell. However, the input is, at least in `zsh` without auto-complete. With `s`, it offers the shell options when pressing `tab` in zsh. This seems save even for idiots. – Timo May 15 '19 at 15:49
I get `chsh: PAM: Authentication failure`, and I've tried on several different machines. – falsePockets Aug 18 '19 at 04:04
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Rebooting on Linut Mint 19.2 is needed to have `zsh` take over. `sudo reboot` gets the job done. – llinfeng Dec 07 '19 at 00:55
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Please log out and login if not working. – Mr. Suryaa Jha Feb 16 '20 at 15:29
I used linux homebrew and got this error ` chsh: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/zsh is an invalid shell` this is the fix: `command -v zsh | sudo tee -a /etc/shells` https://daton.gitbook.io/daton-mac/iterm2 – Greg Benner Jun 16 '20 at 10:55
This worked for me on Ubuntu 20.04; as the answer says it didn't take effect until I logged out and logged back in. – GMA Oct 08 '20 at 13:59
Does this solution still use my bash, so if I have some alias in bash will it still load for example? – aisflat439 Dec 30 '20 at 22:34
When I try it without `sudo` it keeps asking for password – alper May 02 '21 at 10:17
Doesn'w work for me either :( I get "chsh: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/zsh is an invalid shell" if I simply type "zsh" it does start. not sure how to solve this (I've read that simply doing exec zsh in my .bashrc isn't a good idea) – MrCroft Aug 24 '21 at 12:39
don't forget to logout and don't use sudo when execute chsh – Gujarat Santana Oct 16 '22 at 07:23

score 71 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

71

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

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answered Aug 11 '15 at 05:29

Shailesh Kalamkar

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You should be very careful with this approach - it's not usually the best idea to go mucking around with `/etc/passwd` – Thomas Ward Jan 07 '16 at 13:13
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Even though I didn't use this method, it helped me verify the effect of `chsh -s \`which zsh\`` – jchook Sep 30 '17 at 00:43
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To **Log out and log in back** is very important step. Maybe it is should even be somehow emphasized. – luke Dec 23 '22 at 17:03

score 43 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 12 '16 at 18:25

43

You may also do this:

open your bashrc file in your favourite editor

sudo 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 12 '16 at 18:25

muru

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answered Mar 11 '16 at 15:10

Saddam H

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and it will also break all your non-interactive jobs (`scp` for example). – Jakuje Mar 11 '16 at 16:45
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Sorry for the downvote, but changing `/etc/passwd` or `chsh` are better solutions and more reliable. – Timo Dec 25 '18 at 11:57
Thanks that did it. @Timo I did the change on /etc/passwd and or chsh but my default kept going back to bash. I added exec zsh as per posted response and it worked. – Stryker Feb 11 '19 at 21:42
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Adding exec zsh is most likely going to break your Gnome Shell session. – fracca Oct 26 '19 at 10:58
This was the only one that worked for me on the work machine with active directory, my username is always not found, whoami works fine, but certain commands such as chsh always cannot locate my username – element11 May 15 '20 at 18:20
editing /etc/passwd is never better for someone who cant read the chsh manpage. – RichieHH Aug 07 '20 at 14:58
You saved my day by this answer – Hazem Hagrass Dec 17 '21 at 11:37
DO NOT TRY THIS............DO NOT TRY THIS.This is the worst ever reply for setting the zsh as default shell. Since i had done this and my system is keep in loop of showing login screen after entering username/password. – TarangP Dec 16 '22 at 14:20

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

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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

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very helpful, thank you! – Rohan Feb 18 '21 at 11:08

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

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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

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On my Ubuntu VPS it's /bin/zsh – Wilhelm Erasmus Dec 09 '15 at 12:39
On my Ubuntu, I see it in both `/bin/zsh` and `/usr/bin/zsh` – blue_chip Apr 10 '17 at 14:34
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On mine (14.04, with zsh from main repo), there are two zsh's, and they are both two-layer symlinks: /usr/bin/zsh -> /etc/alternatives/zsh-usrbin -> /bin/zsh5 and /bin/zsh -> /etc/alternatives/zsh -> /bin/zsh5 – wjandrea Oct 21 '17 at 00:36

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 21 '17 at 00:38

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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

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answered Dec 19 '14 at 13:59

John Crawford

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I believe it's supposed to ask for a password. I got the same error on my previous mint install. Current one worked fine though – Wilhelm Erasmus Dec 09 '15 at 12:40
[Someone else](https://serverfault.com/q/500865/403609) had the same problem, and it turned out they had ran `chsh -s zsh`, which made their passwd entry incorrect. – wjandrea Oct 21 '17 at 00:46

score 0 · Answer 7 · 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.

How to make ZSH the default shell?

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