On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 07:44:59AM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> Steve Greenland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Bug #36151: etc/init.d scripts should specify an explicit PATH
>
> > Summary: init.d scripts shouldn't depend on having PATH set in a
> > useful manner -- they should explicitly set the PATH. Not much
> > discussion in the bug logs, and most of the flame^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion
> > took place on debian-devel. Result inconclusive. Last few notes
> > in BTS are that it should be part of the coding guidelines, not
> > policy
>
> > Discussion: No additional comments
>
> > Action: Retitle as "GUIDELINE" for future reminder.
>
> This proposal is backwards. Not only should we not set PATH in /etc/init.d
> scripts, we should disallow packages from doing so (except for including
> extra directories). The reason is that it does away with the whole point of
> the PATH variable, which is to allow the caller to override binaries.
>
> For example, if the script didn't set PATH, I could put /usr/local/sbin in
> front of it to override start-stop-daemon. This simply isn't possible if
> PATH was set.
Correct solution to solve both issues:
Scripts which use programs in a directory other than /usr/bin and
/bin (and /usr/bin/X11?) should append that directory to the PATH
environment bariable using a command such as the following to ensure
that the program will be found:
PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin:/sbin
This ensures that the program will be found without losing the
possibility that the user might wish to override the system binary
by adding a local directory to the PATH. Of course, if an
application is intended to be secure, the PATH should be explicitly
set!
Julian
--
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Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Queen Mary, Univ. of London
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://people.debian.org/~jdg
Donate free food to the world's hungry: see http://www.thehungersite.com/
