What Happens After You Log In Remotely

When you log in to a remote system, the rlogin command attempts to find your home directory. If the rlogin command can't find your home directory, it assigns you to the remote system's root (/) directory. For example:

Unable to find home directory, logging in with / 

However, if the rlogin command finds your home directory, it sources both your .cshrc and .login files. Therefore, after a remote login, your prompt is your standard login prompt, and the current directory is the same as when you log in locally.

For example, if your usual prompt displays your system name and working directory, and when you log in, your working directory is your home directory, your login prompt resembles the following:

earth(/home/smith):

Then when you log in to a remote system, you see a similar prompt and your working directory is your home directory, regardless of the directory from which you entered the rlogin command:

earth(/home/smith): rlogin pluto
.
.
.
pluto(/home/smith):

The only difference is that the name of the remote system would substitute for your local system at the beginning of the prompt. The remote file system is parallel to your home directory.

Effectively, if you change directory to /home and then run ls, you see the following:

earth(home/smith): cd ..
earth(/home): ls
smith  jones