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I made a bin directory in my home folder where I place all my scripts. Then in my .bashrc I added the following:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/myusername/bin

So I could access files I placed in there from anywhere. But some of the scripts need to be executed as root. So I thought, I could symlink my .bashrc as root, (as in /root/.bashrc points to /home/myusername/.bashrc, don't know if this is smart) so when I need to run a script as root I can just do:

sudo program_that_requires_root

But then I get a:

sudo: program_that_requires_root: command not found

If I login as root and execute the program, it works fine though. So what is the correct way to accomplish what I want?

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2  
My guess: sudo probably is using secure_path instead of your $PATH. Run sudo -V as root (e.g. sudo sudo -V) and look for lines that contain PATH. – jw013 Oct 18 '12 at 17:14
1  
Yes, at least in Debian, open the file /etc/sudoers and find this line: Defaults secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin (paths may vary) - if you add your user bin path, it'll work. (Perhaps that solution is not recommended for other reasons; I don't know.) Oh, in the file mentioned, it says you shouldn't change it, but I did, and it works great, at least in terms of what I tried to achieve (having the same problem as you). – Emanuel Berg Oct 18 '12 at 19:27

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

You have to make sure these two lines are present in the sudoers file.

Defaults        env_reset
Defaults        secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:$

See these URLs for more details:

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I guess $ at the end of the second (code) line followed when you copied - it should be a closing quote, of course. Also, the new path to the user binaries (and other executables, as @Carlito mentioned scripts) must be added. (You probably did this; just got chopped off.) – Emanuel Berg Oct 19 '12 at 21:01
Thanks, I looked in the sudoers file and added my path to the second line, works great! – Carlito Oct 22 '12 at 9:41
up vote 1 down vote

sudo resets the PATH environment variable to a built-in or administrator-supplied default, in most configurations. So you won't be able to just type sudo myscript.

You could write a wrapper function:

sudo () {
  local cmd
  case $1 in
    -*) :;; # there are options, change nothing
    */*) :;; # explicit path, change nothing
    *) # a command name, look it up in our $PATH
      cmd=$(type -p -- "$1")
      if [[ -n $cmd ]]; then shift; set -- "$c" "$@"; fi;;
  esac
  command sudo "$@"
}

(This is for bash; change type -P to type -p in ksh or zsh.)

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Hm, though I don't doubt this does it, it seems a bit complicated - is there if fact some hidden gain, compared to editing /etc/sudoers, which seems a much simpler solution? – Emanuel Berg Oct 19 '12 at 21:08
1  
@EmanuelBerg If this is your computer, you can edit the sudoers file and change secure_path. If this is a shared machine, the admin is unlikely to be willing to accommodate you: a user-chosen secure_path setting, or recompiling sudo without that option, would be a maintenance headache. – Gilles Oct 19 '12 at 21:21
up vote 0 down vote

By default sudo resets the environment. Have you tried adding the path to root's .bashrc? Or invoke sudo with -E (which only works if setenv in sudoers is set, or the respective command has the SETENV tag set).

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2  
Changing root's .bashrc won't help: sudo doesn't start an interactive instance of bash here. – Gilles Oct 18 '12 at 23:33

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