Chapter III - User's environments and /etc/profile

[rustam_2]

Thanks a lot for all of you. You(all) and me solved first problem, i.e. could set mix environments via CLI.

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>>>> It depends on how many user's want this in their path vs how many don't.

Honestly, i dont know. I just have 2 users, root and oracle. These are just DB server and will not be other services. So should i set these environments for global or just oracle? Could u give me an idea\advice?

P.S. Yesterday, i e-mail to person who used before this server and he answered that there probably might be environments in the bash_profile,or in the bashrc, or in the .profile. How can i check bash_profile and bashrc? (whereis and find didnt help).

Regards,
Rustam

[Horia Chirculescu]

> How can i check bash_profile and bashrc? (whereis and find didnt help).

bash_profile can be found on $HOME directory from every user having bash as the shell. I doubt that you are using bash on HP-UX.

bashrc also is related to bash shell.

Those are Linux common shells.

On HP-UX you are using by default bourne shell

This shell is using profile (actually it is .profile) on the same $HOME directory for each user.

man sh-bourne

Horia.

[Horia Chirculescu]

"Those are Linux common shells" - > "This is a linux common shell"

I was talking about bash.

Horia.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

> Horia: On HP-UX you are using by default bourne shell

No, you are using the Posix shell. The old Bourne shell is long gone. HP-UX uses the Posix shell (see the manpages for 'sh-posix').

Normal users use '/usr/bin/sh' which is compiled with dynamic libraries and minimizes the running memory footprint. The root account has the '/sbin/sh' as the default shell since this is compiled with static libraries that do not require the '/usr' filesystem to be mounted during startup.

Never change 'root's default shell (in '/etc/passwd') from '/sbin/sh' to anything else. To do so may leave you with an un-bootable system.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Dennis Handly]

>I just have 2 users, root and oracle.

Then you just modify ~/.profile of the user that needs those extra PATH directories.

As Horia said, ~ is a shortcut for $HOME.

[Horia Chirculescu]

>No, you are using the Posix shell. The old Bourne shell is long gone. HP-UX uses the Posix shell (see the manpages for 'sh-posix').

Thank you for the necessary correction, James.

Like bourne shell, posix is using .profile and /etc/profile.

Anyway, this would lead to the following obvious observation: Should find out what shell is using the oracle user. If it is a bourne, korn or standard posix shell, you should look for profile files (should be $HOME/.profile). If it a csh, then you should look for .cshrc

If the shell is bash then you should look for .bash_profile. But if you did not find /etc/bashrc file, then probably bash is not installed on your system.

Horia.

[rustam_2]

Thank you, Horia,JRF,Dennis
I read some e-books about setting of user's environment and found out some details.
now i know different between /etc/profile and ~/.profile and when each one runs.

I found out interesting things. All environments which are i set through the CLI and found in ~./bash_profile, not in ~./profile. So ex-DBA set them in ~./bash_profile before. As far as i know ~./bash_profile runs when my shell is bash, right? i checked and found that my current SHELL is SH
SHELL="/sbin/sh"
SHLVL="3"
TERM="vt100"
TZ="WST-5WSTDST"

So should i change my SHELL then do i have to change these environments in another profile file? I mean does SH SHELL is ok? or which shell is suitable for use?
And what does CDE login mean?

[Horia Chirculescu]

>All environments which are i set through the CLI and found in ~./bash_profile, not in ~./profile.

One observation: the variables that you set on your current shell

meaning by invoking:

VAR=value
export VAR

would exist only in that shell session. The profile file for the current user would not be affected by only setting a variable in the CLI.


>So ex-DBA set them in ~./bash_profile before.

This means that your ex-DBA used bash as a login shell.


>As far as i know ~./bash_profile runs when my shell is bash, right? i checked and found that my current SHELL is SH
SHELL="/sbin/sh"
SHLVL="3"
TERM="vt100"
TZ="WST-5WSTDST"


So you use the standard posix shell. This means that you must edit .profile for that user.


>So should i change my SHELL then do i have to change these environments in another profile file?


Yes, depending on the shell you use you need to update a different file. As usual, read manual page for the shell you use.


>I mean does SH SHELL is ok? or which shell is suitable for use?

Posix shell would be just fine. Just set the correct environment for your application.

Horia.

[Dennis Handly]

>about setting of user's environment

(This is typically called setting environment variables.)

>~./bash_profile runs when my shell is bash, right?

Yes.

>I checked and found that my current SHELL is SH: SHELL="/sbin/sh"

No, that just says your login shell is sh.

>So should I change my SHELL then do I have to change these environments in another profile file?

Only if you want $SHELL to be accurate.

>does SH SHELL is ok? or which shell is suitable for use?

Sure, the Posix shell is the default HP-UX shell.

>And what does CDE login mean?

That's what you have when you have a workstation and you use the graphical interface to login.

[rustam_2]

So during setting environment variables i face dilemma.
Should i change ~/.profile for using SHELL sh or should i change shell to bash for using ~/.bash_profile?

1. if first way- sh, what should set\type in ~/.profile? i checked and found some operators

2. if the second - bash, what should i do to change shell from sh to bash?

regards and thank you,
rustam