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From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Where does PATH at login come from?
Message-ID: <14583@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 26 Nov 90 22:30:56 GMT
References: <18613@unix.SRI.COM>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <18613@unix.SRI.COM> ric@ace.sri.com (Richard Steinberger) writes:
>When I log on to some of our BSD unix machines (Alliant, Multiflow,
>DEC 3100), I notice that the PATH variable has some initial members,
>usually something like (/usr/ucb /usr/bin /bin .).  Can anyone
>let me know where these initial elements of PATH come from?
>Is this at all configurable?  Thanks to any and all who reply.

Typically there are three possible sources for the initial PATH:
	The shell itself will have some hard-wired default PATH.
	A system-wide configuration file (/etc/profile, for example)
	can reset the PATH, if the shell reads the configuration file.
	Each user can have his own configuration file in his home
	directory; names are usually .profile (sh) and .login (csh).