How do I set $PATH such that `ssh user@host command` works?

unix shell path ssh
Denver Gingerich picture Denver Gingerich · Jun 2, 2009 · Viewed 88.2k times · Source

I can't seem to set a new $PATH such that it is used when executing commands via ssh user@host command. I have tried adding export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/new_path to ~/.bashrc and ~/.profile on the remote machine, but executing ssh user@host "echo \$PATH" shows that the change has not been picked up (it shows /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games). The remote machine is running Ubuntu 8.04.

I'm sure I could hack it into /etc/profile, but that's not a clean solution and it only works when one has root access.

Answer

singpolyma picture singpolyma · Jun 2, 2009

As grawity said, ~/.bashrc is what you want, since it is sourced by non-interactive non-login shells.

I expect the problem you're having has to do with the default Ubuntu ~/.bashrc file. It usually starts with something like this:

# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[ -z "$PS1" ] && return

You want to put anything for non-interactive shells before this line.

Related questions

Converting relative path into absolute path?

I'm not sure if these paths are duplicates. Given the relative path, how do I determine absolute path using a shell script? Example: relative path: /x/y/../../a/b/z/../c/d absolute path: /a/b/c/d

Read More
Can I get the absolute path to the current script in KornShell?

Is it possible to find out the full path to the script that is currently executing in KornShell (ksh)? i.e. if my script is in /opt/scripts/myscript.ksh, can I programmatically inside that script discover /opt/scripts/myscript.…

Read More
How can I check if a directory exists in a Bash shell script?

What command can be used to check if a directory exists or not, within a Bash shell script?

Read More