Permissions on /etc/profile

[Tim Medford]

Seems the default permissions on /etc/profile are set to 444. I would like to allow execute permission to the other group (ie 445).

I have a user process that needs to inherit all of the custom environment variables I set in /etc/profile. I would like to have them execute this just like a regular shell script. This seems like the easiet way to accomplish this without maintaining those variables in several locations.

Question, is there any security or other risk in changing these permissions? Did I do the right thing by setting system-wide environment variables (such as ORACLE_SID, ORACLE_HOME, etc) in /etc/profile??

Thanks in advance,
Tim

[Mladen Despic · Accepted solution]

Tim,

I think if a user process simply runs the script
/etc/profile, the process will NOT inherit the
variable assignments from the script. You will
probably need to use the "dot" command:

. /etc/profile

(that's a dot, then a space, and then the script).
If you use the "dot" command, you do not
need the execute permission on the script.
You can just leave it at 444.

Mladen

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,
Mladen is right!
Personally I prefer not to edit /etc/profile too much. I only add settings which are really needed by EVERYONE. Other things like Oracle settings etc. I put in another centralized profile, which is sourced by the users who need it.
Just keep your settings centralized, never in individual scripts, users profiles, etc. : it would be an enormous work if anythings has to be changed.
regards,
Thierry.

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

$HOME/.profile or /home/oracle/.profile.

[Wieslaw Krajewski]

Hi,

Should consider two questions, what is forbidden or not and what is recommended or not.

From pure technical point ov view you can change permissions on /etc/profile and run it from the inside any other script (using dot, i.e. . /etc/profile). This is not forbidden.
But this is not recommended, as others say too.
/etc/profile, according to man 4 profile,
"... should be set op to do only those things that are desirable for every user on the system or to set reasonable defaults."