UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello, everyone. I have installed Red Hat 9.0 and Mandrake 9.1 on my computer. I could use a unprivileged user account to run "ifconfig" directly. But when I was using Red Hat, either root or other accounts could run "ifconfig" --- the error messege said: "bash: ifconfig: command not found". I tried "whereis ifconfig" and found it in /sbin/ifconfig. I could run /sbin/ifconfig, but not "ifconfig" directly from terminal. Why is that? Can I modify it, and how?

Thanx.

You would have to add /sbin to your PATH.

Check your shell setup files (.profile, .kshrc, .cshrc, .login - fixing the ones for your shell).

Thanx RTM. And how do I setup sbin, just mkdir? And how can I check those files? I didn't find them.

He means add "/sbin" to the PATH environment variable.

You may do this in the user's startup files, like .bashrc. Try to add into it the line

export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

if you are using bash (should be default in RHL).

Got it. Thanx RTM and cbkihong !

root's PATH should already have /sbin by default. If you became su by just typing su and root passwd, then the root environment may not get read. You may try "su -" and root passwd. Then try ifconfig.