Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

New Face In Hell · 2008-02-14 00:14:51

Hello,

I just installed Arch Linux a few hours ago, at the moment I have got a problem with $PATH.

/etc/login.defs says:

#
# *REQUIRED*  The default PATH settings, for superuser and normal users.
#
# (they are minimal, add the rest in the shell startup files)   <--- minimal?
ENV_SUPATH      PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
ENV_PATH        PATH=/bin:/usr/bin

, so I expected that PATH is set to (at least) "/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin" when I log in as root; but echo $PATH as root (no matter if I start a session with su in X or on the console) gives

/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb

.

I wonder where this $PATH comes from? What happened to the values set in login.defs?

grepping for PATH in /etc gave no suspicious result.

~/.bashrc:

alias ls='ls --color=auto'
PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '

Any help appreciated.

Grettings, Florian

Last edited by New Face In Hell (2008-02-14 00:15:41)

Misfit138 · 2008-02-14 00:24:45

/etc/profile?

New Face In Hell · 2008-02-14 00:30:28

Misfit138 wrote:

/etc/profile?

Ah, I have forgotten to mention that.
At the beginning I had no /etc/profile (I don't know why, because all the settings in /etc/profile.d/ are useless then) so I created one.
It looks like this (I've found it here somewhere on the forum):

#
# /etc/profile
#


# load profiles from /etc/profile.d
#  (to disable a profile, just remove execute permission on it)
if [ `ls -A1 /etc/profile.d/ | wc -l` -gt 0 ]; then
        for profile in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
                if [ -x $profile ]; then
                    . $profile
                fi
        done
        unset profile
fi

.

I *could* set path in /etc/profile and ~/.bashrc, but what is then with the comment (they are minimal, add the rest in the shell startup files)?

/etc/profile.bash:

#
# /etc/profile.bash
# Global settings for bash shells
#

PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
PS2='> '
PS3='> '
PS4='+ '

export PS1 PS2 PS3 PS4


#In the future we may want to add more ulimit entries here,
# in the offchance that /etc/security/limits.conf is skipped
ulimit -Sc 0 #Don't create core files

if test "$TERM" = "xterm" -o \
        "$TERM" = "xterm-color" -o \
        "$TERM" = "xterm-256color" -o \
        "$TERM" = "rxvt" -o \
        "$TERM" = "rxvt-unicode" -o \
        "$TERM" = "xterm-xfree86"; then
    PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"'
    export PROMPT_COMMAND
fi

Last edited by New Face In Hell (2008-02-14 00:31:12)

Misfit138 · 2008-02-14 00:39:04

Here's mine, feel free to use this, but something tells me that if etc/profile didn't get created, then something went awry during your install, and it might not be the only problem...unless something has changed in the installer that I don't know about.

#
# /etc/profile
#

export PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/opt/bin"
export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1
export MANPATH="/usr/man:/usr/X11R6/man"
export LESSCHARSET="latin1"
export INPUTRC="/etc/inputrc"
export LESS="-R"

export LC_COLLATE="C"

export COLUMNS LINES

export PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
export PS2='> '

umask 022

if [ "$TERM" = "xterm" -o "$TERM" = "xterm-color" -o "$TERM" = "rxvt" -o "$TERM" = "xterm-xfree86" ]; then
  PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"'
fi

# load profiles from /etc/profile.d
#  (to disable a profile, just remove execute permission on it)
if [ `ls -A1 /etc/profile.d/ | wc -l` -gt 0 ]; then
  for profile in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if [ -x $profile ]; then
      . $profile
    fi
  done
  unset profile
fi
alias yogurt="yaourt"
# End of file

The shell startup files reside under /etc/rc.d fwiw.

New Face In Hell · 2008-02-14 00:57:44

Thank you for your /etc/profile.

Misfit138 wrote:

Here's mine, feel free to use this, but something tells me that if etc/profile didn't get created, then something went awry during your install, and it might not be the only problem...unless something has changed in the installer that I don't know about.

I wounder about that, too... at least every other thing works like expected. The installation finished also with no errors (IMO, this was not my first Linux installation).

New Face In Hell · 2008-02-14 01:49:28

For completion: the above mentioned $PATH comes from xdm (it is set via DisplayManager.DISPLAY.systemPath).

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-14 00:14:51

Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

#2 2008-02-14 00:24:45

Re: Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

#3 2008-02-14 00:30:28

Re: Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

#4 2008-02-14 00:39:04

Re: Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

#5 2008-02-14 00:57:44

Re: Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

#6 2008-02-14 01:49:28

Re: Usage of ENV_PATH in /etc/login.defs / Where comes $PATH from?

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