root PATH missing /sbin and /usr/sbin

[Dan Williams]

On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 07:58 -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 16:58 +1000, James Cameron wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 10:28:30PM -0700, Javier Cardona wrote:
> > > David,
> > > 
> > > > I am in the Developer console.....
> > > >
> > > > iwconfig: command not found
> > > > ifconfig: command not found
> > > 
> > > But for now, can you try to login as root first and provide the full
> > > path to iwconfig?
> > > $ su -
> > > # /sbin/iwconfig
> > 
> > Is there any good reason why we don't have /usr/sbin and /sbin in PATH?
> > 
> > On Debian and Ubuntu systems I don't get this problem.  When I su to
> > root PATH is sane.  On OLPC and Fedora systems this doesn't work.

Sorry, I read the subject wrong.

Root's path has /sbin and /usr/sbin.  It depends on how you're getting
to root.

su   <--- keeps your environment

su - <--- gives you root's environment (or whoever you su to)

logging in as root <--- gives you root's environment

Dan

> ISTR that it was because non-admin users (ie, not root or a sysadmin)
> shouldn't need binaries in /sbin or /usr/sbin.  And that we shouldn't
> put binaries that need to be run by non-privileged users in /sbin
> or /usr/sbin.  Looking at stuff there, most of it requires root privs to
> be useful anyway.
> 
> This is an upstream Fedora thing and not OLPC-specific; you should
> probably ask there as well and see what other Fedora people say.  I
> don't really feel strongly one way or the other.
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
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