Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

I have a client that is insisting on installing a lot of Linux utilities (perzl.org packages and AIX toolkit) some of which override the AIX versions (ie sed and grep). They are migrating from HP to IBM and many of their home grown utilities use these Linux versions. This in and of itself does not concern me though I've had little experience with Linux. What does concern me is that they are also insisting that /opt/freeware/bin:/opt/pware/bin:/usr/linux/bin be placed in the front of the PATH in /etc/environment. I've recommended the they make this path change in individual user .profile's.

Are my concerns unwarranted?

Gary
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Originally posted by: nagger

No, you are right to be concerned.

I would NOT change the root user PATH as you may create may problems and unexpected behaviour.
Same goes for any one doing System Admin work and have access permissions to root like features.
Also many application might assume AIX commands.

If regular users get messed up with Linux variation of commands then that is their fault/problem and they will not be getting AIX Support. they would have to recreate issues under non-Linux alternative command environments.

But I would not like risk root/SysAdmin - if you have a problem I would want a "bog-standard" zero risk environment. What if you had a disk issue ran the command to fix it and that failed and cause even more damage due to unexpected side effect.

Don't get me wrong I love Linux and many of the commands are superior and without standard UNIX commands weird limits like the number of lines or line sizes that tools will handle.

I would handle it at the user account level - they could fix the defaults used for user account so new users get the Linux style commands. But do people create lots of users these days?

ta Nigel
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Originally posted by: tony.evans

It's a many edged sword in some respects, if scripts/code assumes it can run a command and get output, relying on a path it has no control over, then that might be an issues that needs to be fixed. So in some respects, good programming practice means the path shouldn't matter.

However, for day to day admin on a box, no one's going to be typing in full paths on the command line before their sed commands, which is exactly what the path is there to protect us against.

On the third hand, root really should set a path in it's own profile that prevents it being duped into running dodgy stuff anyway.

With all that said, I agree with you, non-standard apps should come further down the path than standard apps, for many sound and logical reasons.
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