On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 20:50 +0200, nigel henry wrote: > On Thursday 06 July 2006 19:05, alan wrote: > > On Thu, 6 Jul 2006, Timothy Alberts wrote: > > > So I get this every now and then and haven't found a smooth method of > > > dealing with it. I have my desktop upgraded from FC4 to FC5 and the > > > command 'ifconfig' comes back with 'bash: ifconfig: command not found.' > > > Additionally, I have been through tutorials on the web and different > > > books on running commands that more often than not, the bash shell comes > > > back with the same message. > > > > ifconfig is in /sbin. That is not normally in the path. > > > > > My first question is, are the shell commands and features standardized > > > somewhere so that I know what commands I can expect to have no matter > > > what machine I'm sitting at or what type of installation I have? My > > > second question is, if these commands are supposed to be there, but the > > > shell comes back and says they aren't, what is the procedure for finding > > > the commands or installing the packages required for them? > > > > To find out what installed in a particular package > > > > rpm -q --filesbypkg <packagename> | less > > > > > I understand the 'which xxx' command will tell me the location of the > > > executable that is being used when I call a command. However it doesn't > > > help me find a missing command. I also understand that typically shell > > > commands are in /bin /usr/bin /usr/local/bin among others. If it helps, > > > when I type 'which ifconfig' the following is the result: > > > > > > /usr/bin/which: no ifconfig in > > > (/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin: > > > /usr/X11R6/bin:/home/talberts/bin) > > > > > > Sorry these are fairly general questions so if it's easier to just focus > > > on the 'ifconfig' command that would be helpful. Thank you for any > > > response. > > > > The two other places to look at /sbin and /usr/sbin. That is where system > > binaries normally used by root are kept. They are not in the standard > > path. (Some admins lock these apps off from non-privileged users.) > > > > You can add them to ~/.bash_profile in the PATH variable. > > > > Hope that helps... > > Hi Alan. Thanks for that info. Since FC1, and including later versions, I have > been writing down path's in a book for various Alsa commands, etc. FC5's > ~/.bash only has /bin as a path. I added /sbin , and like magic, just typing > ifconfig on the CLI produces output. > > It would make sense for /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin being in ~/.bash_profile > as default. /usr/local/bin, and /usr/local/sbin probably are not neccessary, > as these would only be there from user installed source tarballs. > > There do not seem to be any security issues here, as any user can add pathways > to ~/.bash_profile, and they can only read the info, not change it. > > I can throw my book of commands away now. Perhaps not yet, as there's a lot > of other usefull stuff in it. > > Nigel. Nigel, I think your missing an important point. ifconfig is only in your path when you are logged in as root since that command as are several others (chkconfig for example) are only used as root. There would be no point in having them in the path of the normal user. Although, through sudo normal users can be allowed to use them. -- Aaron Konstam <akonstam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
