UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

On AIX 5.2 as root, installed Seamonkey and have to type
#/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey to get it to run, which it does okay.
To set up a permanent alias, I did the following
(1) In a text editor
alias seamk='/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey'
and saved it to /home/alias_file
(2) In a text editor added to /etc/security/.profile
ENV=/home/alias_file
export ENV
(3) Did a #shutdown -Fr and on start up in a terminal put #seamk and the Seamonkey browser does not open.
(4) If I put in a terminal
#alias seamk='/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey'
then in a terminal
#seamk the Seamonkey browser opens okay.

Would appreciate what error I am making in the permanent alias setup.

Thanks

Helo farl,
fisrt of all, I don't think you need to reboot your system to apply those kind of changes...

Back to your issue, I would just add:

alias seamk=/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey

to my $HOME/.profile

Or, if you want it to be availabe for every user, just:

ln -s /seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey /usr/bin

would be enough...

Regards.

Grial thanks for your reply.
I deleted alias_file out of /home and deleted the two lines I put in /etc/security/.profile to get back to a clean slate.
You said:

" alias seamk=/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey
to my $HOME/.profile "
I do not have a $HOME/.profile on the computer, only a /home which does not contain any .profile file
Running #set it shows HOME=/

You further said:
" Or, if you want it to be availabe for every user, just:
ln -s /seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey /usr/bin "
I like this solution better, but there is nothing in your command line to tell the computer that seamk is actually
=/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey as when the alias is set up it is all lost when the computer is turned off.

Help really appreciated.

You DO have a $HOME, you've seen it for yourself (HOME=/).
If $HOME/.profile does not exist, just create a new one and add the alias but, before you ask it, logoff and login again after that.

I was just giving you some hints, but OK, here I go:

Code:

ln -s /seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey /usr/bin/seamk

As you can see it's as simple as a "man ln"

Regards.

Another approach is to

(a) create a bin directory in your home directory

(b) put all the links you want in that

(c) add $HOME/bin to PATH in an appropriate profile file.

That's a good option if you do not have access as root.
Take into account that in this case, HOME=/ and there, most probably, are a /bin already owned by root with oter binaries inside. Anyway, as you said, it's another way

Grail and Porter thanks for replies.

Creating a .profile file containing
alias seamk=/seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey
at / or at /home did not work, just got
/usr/bin/ksh seamk:not found.

Using the second method
ln -s /seakey/seamonkey/seamonkey /usr/bin/seamk
worked okay on AIX 5.2 machine.

On my AIX 5.1 machine where I use /sea/seamonkey/seamonkey to open the browser the second method
ln -s /sea/seamonkey/seamonkey /usr/bin/seamk
worked okay.

On my AIX 5.3 machine where I use /usr/bin/firefox to open the browser the second method
ln -s /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/fire
did not work, I got
run-mozilla.sh: cannot execute /usr/mozilla/firefox/fire-bin

Could I trouble you for one more reply.
Do I have to uninstall or delete anything where the ln -s command did not work on AIX 5.3. Am content to enter /usr/bin/firefox each time to run the browser.

Thanks


PS On a sad note, was just starting to type in the ln -s command on my 7043 running AIX 4.3.3/Firefox and she died. Looks like planar or powersupply failure.