On Mac OS X, the default $PATH values are:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin

What are the default values on Linux?

1

8 Answers

On a default Ubuntu desktop install $PATH is:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games

But in a minimal chroot environment created by debootstrap, $PATH only contains:

# echo $PATH
/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

Environment path values are stored in .bashrc file in ubuntu.

The system-wide PATH variable is defined in /etc/environment

bash will set PATH to a hard-coded default value if it's not set in the environment:

$ env -i bash -c 'echo $PATH'
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:.

We can check that this value is indeed hard-coded, and not read from the environment or some file, using the strings utility:

$ strings /bin/bash | grep /usr/sbin
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:.

However, I get a different result on my Arch Linux machine:

$ env -i bash -c 'echo $PATH'
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin

So, the default is chosen at the time the bash binary was built, which depends on the Linux distribution in use.

The bash man page states:

PATH

The search path for commands. It is a colon-separated list of directories in which the shell looks for commands (see COMMAND EXECUTION below). A zero-length (null) directory name in the value of PATH indicates the current directory. A null directory name may appear as two adjacent colons, or as an initial or trailing colon. The default path is system-dependent, and is set by the administrator who installs bash. A common value is /usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin.

Here, "installs" likely refers to make install (as opposed to installing a pre-built binary using a package manager), so "administrator" would refer to the distribution vendor.

The "INVOCATION" section in the man page describes the startup process, which may affect the initial value of the variable.

1

There are path builtin the shells which is

echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

Then the default path for Ubuntu is:

echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games

There's an easy way to find out:

printenv

Or, more directly:

echo $PATH

But, if you're just looking for some quick info, Ubuntu typically sets the path to:

/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games:

For questions like this, you can usually dig up the answer by reading the Bible.

Depending on which Linux your using, it might be different. If you have a login to a linux already, just type 'env' to see your environment variables.

If you want to know how the PATH env variable is getting built, have a look at .bashrc and .bash_profile in your home directory. If more curious, you can also look at /etc/profile, /etc/profile.d/* (if exists) and manual for bash (man bash).

To see the default path use what other mentioned in answers:

echo $PATH

To edit use:

gedit ~/.bashrc

This default PATH variable are defined under /etc/enviroment.

The canonical location seems to vary across distributions. With Debian 10, the system-default PATH is defined in /etc/login.defs. The default PATH for normal users is its ENV_PATH variable and the default for super-users is ENV_SUPATH. These will be used for sessions that don't spawn shells (e.g. cron jobs)

Other defaults may be defined by the per-shell scripts, including:

• /etc/bash.bashrc
• /etc/csh.cshrc
• /etc/csh.login
• /etc/profile
• /etc/profile.d/*

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Sign up using Google Sign up using Facebook Sign up using Email and Password Submit

Post as a guest

Post Your Answer Discard

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy