How do I speed up new Terminal tab loading time?

Solution 1:

Short Answer:

The problem is caused by a (potentially) expensive ASL system log lookup. To see this in action, run sudo fs_usage | grep 'asl.*login' in a Terminal window, then open a new Terminal window.

To solve the problem, configure Terminal to launch a non-standard shell:

1. Create a symlink to your preferred shell. E.g.: sudo ln -s /bin/bash /usr/local/bin/bash
2. Open Terminal Preferences and select the "General" tab.
3. Select "Shells open with: Command" and enter the symlink you created in step 1. E.g. "/usr/local/bin/bash".

Note 1: You may also need to add bash and -bash to the process list at "Terminal Preferences > Profiles > Shell > Ask before closing".

Note 2: /usr/local/bin is writable in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) Rootless mode.

To verify the fix:

• Open a new Terminal window.
• "Last Login:" should not be displayed at the top
• Open the inspector (Command + I) and select the Info tab.
• The command should read login -pfq username /usr/bin/bash or login -pfql username ...

Important: If the login command does not include the -q parameter, then you have not fixed the problem.

You can also use sudo fs_usage | grep 'asl.*login' to verify that /var/log/asl is not accessed when opening a new Terminal window.

Details:

There are a number of bugs at play here.

The actual cause of the slowness is /usr/bin/login, which by default will display the date of your last login. To get this last login date, it searches the ASL (Apple System Log) database at /var/log/asl/. These log files can be very heavily fragmented and it's this file fragmentation that causes the delay when opening a new window or tab. (Bug 1)

The only way to suppress the ASL search for last login is to pass the -q parameter to /usr/bin/login. The .hushlogin file will also suppress the "Last Login" display, but it does not suppress the expensive ASL search. (Bug 2)

Terminal always uses /usr/bin/login to launch each new window/shell. There is no option to launch a shell directly nor is there a way to directly control the parameters passed to /usr/bin/login (Bug 3).

As it turns out, Terminal will pass the -q parameter to /usr/bin/login when it is configured to use a non-standard shell. (Bug 4)

The -q parameter is what we need to avoid the problem, hence the symlink to /usr/local/bin/bash.

Solution 2:

What I needed was changing from login shell to command /bin/bash -il in iTerm's Preferences > Profiles > General > Command.

I needed the option -l (Make bash act as if it had been invoked as a login shell) added in order to set environmental variables from ~/.bash_profile