[gentoo-user] Re: Where does sudo get the PATH ?

[Nicolas Richard]

"Nicolas Richard" <theonewiththeevillook@×××××.fr> writes:

> I don't understand where sudo finds the value for the PATH env
> variable.

Finally, I found where the problem lied. Recall that my problem was the
following : I had a path in `sudo env | grep ^PATH' which did not seem
to originate from any config file in /etc or /root (the path pointing to
texlive/2011). And indeed, it was set at compile time, using
--with-secure-path :

$ sudo sudo -V | head -2
Sudo version 1.8.5p2
Configure options: --prefix=/usr --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
--host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
--localstatedir=/var/lib --enable-zlib=system
--with-secure-path=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/opt/bin:/usr/local/texlive/2011/bin/i386-linux
--with-editor=/usr/libexec/editor --with-env-editor --without-insults
--without-all-insults --with-ldap_conf_file=/etc/ldap.conf.sudo
--with-ldap --enable-nls --with-pam --without-skey --without-selinux
--without-opie --without-linux-audit --with-timedir=/var/db/sudo
--with-plugindir=/usr/lib/sudo --docdir=/usr/share/doc/sudo-1.8.5_p2

In the ebuild, I find the following comment : 

# FIXME: secure_path is a compile time setting. using ROOTPATH
# is not perfect, env-update may invalidate this, but until it
# is available as a sudoers setting this will have to do.

I'm not sure I understand this comment because adding the following line
in /etc/sudoers :

Defaults secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

does what I expect it to do : override the PATH variable. Maybe the
comment is simply outdated ?

Thanks to those who tried to help me here and also to Nicolas George who
pointed me in the direction of `secure_path' which I had somehow
overlooked in the manpages.

-- 
Nicolas.