/sbin not in path

[Sean Earp]

Hello all-

I  did not see an answer to this in the archives, so if it is a stupid 
question, I apologize in advance.

I just did a clean install of FC2 Test 1, formatting my drive in 
advance.  I chose all the default options during the install.  Once I 
booted up to the desktop, I did not have any network connectivity 
(although the internet/network worked fine with FC1).  I popped open a 
terminal window and typed

ifconfig

To check if I was obtaining an IP address.  I received a message that 
the command "ifconfig" could not be found.   After doing some 
troubleshooting, I found that       /sbin      was not part of my 
default path.  If I manually move to the /sbin directory and run 
./ifconfig, it works fine.  If export the /sbin directory to my path, 
it works fine.

My question is...      Is the omission of the /sbin directory in the 
default path an error, or is something messed up with my installation?  
  As far as I recall, ifconfig worked just fine in FC1

Any information would be much appreciated.   Thanks a million,

-Sean

[Mike A. Harris]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Sean Earp wrote:
> I  did not see an answer to this in the archives, so if it is a stupid 
> question, I apologize in advance.
>
> I just did a clean install of FC2 Test 1, formatting my drive in 
> advance.  I chose all the default options during the install.  Once I 
> booted up to the desktop, I did not have any network connectivity 
> (although the internet/network worked fine with FC1).  I popped open a 
> terminal window and typed
>
> ifconfig
>
> To check if I was obtaining an IP address.  I received a message that 
> the command "ifconfig" could not be found.   After doing some 
> troubleshooting, I found that       /sbin      was not part of my 
> default path.  If I manually move to the /sbin directory and run 
> ./ifconfig, it works fine.  If export the /sbin directory to my path, 
> it works fine.
>
> My question is...      Is the omission of the /sbin directory in the 
> default path an error, or is something messed up with my installation?  
>  As far as I recall, ifconfig worked just fine in FC1

It's not an error.  /sbin and /usr/sbin have never been in the 
default user path.  They are only in root's path by default, and 
only if you are using a root login shell.  This means if you use 
"su" to switch to root from a user account, you won't have these 
directories in your path either.  Instead you need to use "su -" 
to initiate a login shell.

It has always been this way.

[Daniel Roesen]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 08:16:49PM -0800, Sean Earp wrote:
> My question is...      Is the omission of the /sbin directory in the 
> default path an error, or is something messed up with my installation?

Intentional. /sbin and /usr/sbin are supposed for binaries which are
of (almost) only use to the root user, not normal unpriviledged
users. As such, $PATH of non-root users doesn't contain any sbin
directories.

Wether this distinction makes great sense or not is a debate which
can easily explode to a flamefest, so I won't get into arguing.
:-)
> As far as I recall, ifconfig worked just fine in FC1

No, FC1 works as described above (as did all Red Hat Linux releases
I can remember).

Regards,
Daniel

[Sean Earp]

Thanks Daniel and Mike-

You guys are, of course, absolutely correct.  I have finally managed to 
find a site that lays out what the purpose of the standard directories 
are in Linux.  Had I read it before I submitted the question, I would 
have been able to answer it myself.  If you are a Linux newbie like 
myself, make sure to bookmark this handy reference:

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/

Hope this helps someone,

-Sean

On Feb 23, 2004, at 5:58 PM, Daniel Roesen wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 08:16:49PM -0800, Sean Earp wrote:
> > My question is...      Is the omission of the /sbin directory in the
> > default path an error, or is something messed up with my installation?
>
> Intentional. /sbin and /usr/sbin are supposed for binaries which are
> of (almost) only use to the root user, not normal unpriviledged
> users. As such, $PATH of non-root users doesn't contain any sbin
> directories.
>
> Wether this distinction makes great sense or not is a debate which
> can easily explode to a flamefest, so I won't get into arguing.
> :-)
> > As far as I recall, ifconfig worked just fine in FC1
>
> No, FC1 works as described above (as did all Red Hat Linux releases
> I can remember).
>
> Regards,
> Daniel

[Mike A. Harris]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Sean Earp wrote:
> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:31:45 -0800
> From: Sean Earp 
> To: [e-mail]
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
> List-Id: For testers of Fedora Core development releases
>    <fedora-test-list.redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: /sbin not in path
>
> Thanks Daniel and Mike-
>
> You guys are, of course, absolutely correct.  I have finally managed to 
> find a site that lays out what the purpose of the standard directories 
> are in Linux.  Had I read it before I submitted the question, I would 
> have been able to answer it myself.  If you are a Linux newbie like 
> myself, make sure to bookmark this handy reference:
>
> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/
>
> Hope this helps someone,

Yep, only one minor correction though.  The current version of 
the FHS, is version 2.3:

http://www.pathname.com/fhs
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html

Hope this helps,
TTYL

[Harry Putnam]

Sean Earp  writes:
> Hello all-
>
> I  did not see an answer to this in the archives, so if it is a stupid
> question, I apologize in advance.
>
> I just did a clean install of FC2 Test 1, formatting my drive in
> advance.  I chose all the default options during the install.  Once I
> booted up to the desktop, I did not have any network connectivity
> (although the internet/network worked fine with FC1).  I popped open a
> terminal window and typed
>
> ifconfig
>
> To check if I was obtaining an IP address.  I received a message that
> the command "ifconfig" could not be found.   After doing some
> troubleshooting, I found that       /sbin      was not part of my
> default path.  If I manually move to the /sbin directory and run
> ./ifconfig, it works fine.  If export the /sbin directory to my path,
> it works fine.
>
> My question is...      Is the omission of the /sbin directory in the
> default path an error, or is something messed up with my installation?
> As far as I recall, ifconfig worked just fine in FC1
>
> Any information would be much appreciated.   Thanks a million,

Well, I can't speak for fedora policy but if you were running ifconfig
as a user not root, that is supposed to happen at least by default.

That is, sbin is not included in user's path on purpose in many
distros.   Sbin contains many programs that can be dangerous to the os
health in the wrong hands.

Just put it in your path in .bash_profile.

[Michel Alexandre Salim]

On Sun, 2004-02-22 at 20:16 -0800, Sean Earp wrote:
[snip]
> I just did a clean install of FC2 Test 1, formatting my drive in 
> advance.  I chose all the default options during the install.  Once I 
> booted up to the desktop, I did not have any network connectivity 
> (although the internet/network worked fine with FC1).  I popped open a 
> terminal window and typed

You could also run 'neat' from the command line, or through System
Settings->Menu->Network, and use Fedora's nice GUI to configure your
network :)

Regards,

- Michel