can't run /sbin commands
Dave Webster
dwebman at telus.net
Thu Sep 15 20:05:27 PDT 2005
Thanks Alex,
Looking at my .tcshrc file I saw the shell variable path set as:
set path =
(/sbin /bin /usr/sbin /usr/bin /usr/games /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/bin /usr/X11R6/bin
$HOME/bin)
but the environment variable PATH set as:
setenv PATH "{$PATH}:$FORREST_HOME/bin"
I removed the ""s and everything works fine. Acroread7 installed fine.
I'm a happy camper. Thanks for your help.
Dave
PS. Is there some good reference to explain shell variables and
environment variables, how they're set and their lifetime.
On Thu, 2005-09-15 at 10:10 +0100, Alex Zbyslaw wrote:
> Dave Webster wrote:
>
> >When I first installed FreeBSD I was able to run "halt" and "reboot" as
> >su without the full /sbin/reboot command. After adding a new path to
> >PATH, I've been unable to run these commands without specifying the full
> >path.
> >[...]
> >Here is the output of echo $PATH:
> >/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:
> >/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/Dave/bin:/usr/home/Dave/apache-forrest-0.7/bin
> >
> >My question is with /sbin in the path why do I have to
> >specify /sbin/reboot, /sbin/kldstat etc.? Could this be causing my make
> >install to fail? How can /sbin be in the path and still require a full
> >path declaration for it's commands to work.
> >
> >
> The short answer to your question is that if /sbin really were in your
> path you would be able to run programs from it, therefore /sbin is *not*
> in your path. (Since you can run commands from /sbin with full path
> names it can't be file permissions or deleted programs). Either that or
> something else on you path is somehow messing up your shell big-time,
> but that seems less likely.
>
> You say that the problems started after you changed you path (I assume
> in your .profile or whatever). So, quite simply, you must have made
> some kind of mistake. I would suggest going back to the file you edited
> and starting again. Comment out the PATH specification and add things
> back one at a time. Assuming a /bin/sh or derivative, you can re-load
> your file with
> . filename
>
> (for csh derivatives, use "source filename").
>
> After each change you make, source the changes and see if you can run
> some innocuous program from /sbin such as kldstat.
>
> --Alex
>
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