What is bash or bin/bash used for and why is it on Apple devices?

Hello Hconley33,

Why do you ask? While there is nothing wrong with bash, unless you are a developer or working on the command line, you should never know it is there. Are you getting Terminal windows appearing unexpectedly?

See http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/24/bash.html

They are needed in order for the system to run? Yes

They are automatically on there? Yes

Also, do you need them for like secret messaging somehow? No

I'm sorry, but without more specifics, I can't give an answer to all of that. I can assure you that bash doesn't have anything to do with secret messaging. But then again, modern computers are extraordinarily complex devices. One could write a secret messaging app using bash and Github, and run in on an Apple machine. But I suspect that whatever your husband was exploring is completely normal.

bash is a shell program, that allows the very cryptic world of Darwin (the unix-like base on which the rich Graphical User Interface of MacOS is built) to be accessed as a command-line interface.

If you grew up with Windows, it looks similar to "MS-DOS mode" in Windows.

It is mostly used by developers, but there are a few programs that use it directly.

--------

GitHub is an important Repository used by Open-Source software developers, to provide downloadable executable files and to allow others to "help" with development by rigorously checking out source files and checking in modifications when nearly finished.

GitHub provides the rigorous structure needed to manage development by multiple unrelated developers, so that changes made by one are not accidentally clobbered by another.

"Ordinary" users may have downloaded Open Source software executable files from there.

Hconley33 wrote:

A little off track but do you know what this means?

I'm sorry, but I don't know what "this" is. Do you have a screen shot or something? Any kind of text or alert that appears on your screen? Anything? You are asking very general questions. Can you explain what prompted you to even ask these questions? That would help immensely.

That is some low-level log file. It has nothing to do with bash or any kind of messaging.

A modern Mac is one of the most complex computing systems ever made. You will not find anyone outside of Apple, or inside of Apple for that matter, who understands everything inside it.

You and your husband should each have your own Account, with separate login (it does not have to be a secret from each other, just separate).

Then if he makes the desktop dark purple, you don't have to endure it because your Account has its own desktop settings, with much nicer pictures. And his junk won't annoy you, because you won't even see it any more.

the information under fax log files is --

NOTHING, you have no fax log files.

The next subject is login time accounting, and your ONE account was used for everything.

ROOT is available only to the System itself.

--------

You really need to have your own account so that when your husband takes things apart, you do not have to get tripped up by all the parts he leaves around.

Because one of the things the "periodic" script does is rotate fax log files, if you have any. I don't think you realize the true extent of how complex these things are. There are dozens of such log files. Some of them may have hundreds of thousands of entries in them every single day.

All part of the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS.