Hello,

Is there a clean way to remove all post-logon, custom-added environment parameters (variables, paths, etc) from shell?

When I SSH to a cluster, my shell (bash) already has some system-generated environment parameters (lets call this env0). Then I source some paths, export some new variables, change few things in LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc. Lets call the this shell environment after all these modifications env1.

Is there a clean way to revert back to env0 from env1 without logging out and logging back in?

I could write a script that will save the output of the <env> command to a file at the beginning of log on and then when I want to revert back, I can compare current environment with this saved file and modify the current environment to match with the saved environment. But I was wondering if there is a better way.

The reason I want to do this: I need to submit jobs on a cluster using SLURM. The sbatch command propagates all current environment variables to the compute nodes. I may have modified several environment parameters while preparing the job and I do not want those changes to be propagated to the compute node via the sbatch command.

You can source your original .bashrc to restore variables to their native login points, however newly defined variables in the shell will still exist. Whatever process you use to set any new variables, you can have a script or other manner to unset those, and there is a bash unset command which I've never used.

Otherwise the tried and true brute force method: Write a script to save env0, set env1 and then also support restoring env0.

Thanks rtmistler. I do want to get rid of the newly defined variables and newly appended parts in $PATH and $LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Right now, I do use a script that compares env0 and env1 and resets old variables/paths and unsets new variables (using the bash unset command). I was wondering if there is a better way of doing so.

You could try something like this:

exec env -i LOGNAME="$LOGNAME" HOME="$HOME" TERM="$TERM" bash -l

login(1) typically also sets: $SHELL $MAIL and $PATH (though this last one is usually overwritten by the contents of /etc/profile) so you may also want to add those to the list that you explicitly set.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, GazL! This is is exactly what I was looking for.

1 members found this post helpful.

In which case you should bump the rep (click "Yes" for "Did you find this post helpful").

He already did but he gave rep directly using the rep icon so it didn't increase the posts helpful counter. I was happy enough with a simple "thank you". I wouldn't notice another little green square if I got one.

reproof accepted.