Can a non-root (without sudo permissions) run the following command:
export PATH=/tml:$PATH
If so, how does it work?
I thought environment variables are read-only for non-root users, while shell variables can be modified freely.
1 Answer
The output of the following commands should convince you that you can modify your environment variables.
$ grep PATH ~/.profile
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
PATH=~/bin:"${PATH}"
PATH="$PATH:/usr/games"
$ ls -l ~/.profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 sudodus sudodus 632 dec 10 2010 /home/sudodus/.profile
In other words, you can not only modify these variables temporarily, but also make it persist by modifying your configuration file ~/.profile. You, as a regular user can do it.
The following command line shows system files, where the PATH is set or modified
sudo grep -r 'PATH=' /etc/*
You may want to get more details. See for example the following link,
Unix & Linux: Complete view of where the PATH variable is set in bash - particularly the answer by Gilles.
