Root Shell, Path & Prompt

tschima · 05-01-2008, 09:54 PM

Hey Everyone,

Solaris SXDE 01/08 on amd64
Is it safe to use bash as the root shell? And if not, is is possible to change the prompt of the sh shell to something more usable? For instance, I'd like to have a 2-line prompt that looks like this:
root@servername
/somedir/anotherdir# _

And I'd like the word root to be in red so I am reminded to be careful and hurry up and log out.

This is the bash equivalent to PS1="\u\h\n\w# " without all the ascii color codes.

How do I know what directories to add to my path? I downloaded gcc from sunfreeware.com and got it installed (I think) w/pkgadd -d, but it's not in the path or maybe the libraries aren't? I wanted to install Midnight Commander, also from the same source, but it doesn't want to work for some reason. I did download and install all the listed dependencies, but there must be something else to this. Should I have installed by clicking an icon instead of the command line pkgadd -d? Thanks,

Terry

bathory · 05-02-2008, 04:13 AM

Of course you can use bash, if you're familiar with it

Quote:

How do I know what directories to add to my path? I downloaded gcc from sunfreeware.com and got it installed (I think) w/pkgadd -d, but it's not in the path or maybe the libraries aren't?

I don't know about Solaris SXDE, but Solaris 10 comes with gcc installed in /usr/sfw/bin (not in the default PATH anyway). The freeware gcc and other utils are installed under /usr/local/bin, so you have to add this directory in your PATH, in order to be able to use them.

Regards

jlliagre · 05-02-2008, 08:56 AM

For question 1, it isn't recommended to change root's shell if you are mounting /usr on a different file system. Otherwise, there is no problem outside the fact login in as root is a poor practice, but you already know that.
About question 2, here is a shell script that will show you a populated PATH and MANPATH for Solaris. It looks into all standard and less standard places. The PATH can probably be cleaned up to remove unwanted directories or reorder some others as the same command may appear at different location.

Code:

#!/bin/ksh
for p in PATH MANPATH
do
  case $p in
  (PATH)
    _PATH=""
    for i in /usr/ucb $HOME/bin /opt/*/bin /usr/*/*/bin /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/*/bin /sbin /usr/bin ; do
      if [ -d $i ]; then
        for cmd in $i/*; do
          if [ -x $cmd ]; then
            eval _PATH=$i:$_PATH
            break
          fi
        done
      fi
    done
    ;;
  (MANPATH)
    _MANPATH=""
    for i in /opt/*/man /opt/*/share/man /usr/local/man /usr/local/*/man /usr/*/share/man /usr/*/man ;  do
      if [ -d $i ]; then
        eval _MANPATH=$i:$_MANPATH
      fi
    done
    ;;
  esac
  eval printf "%s=%s\\\n" $p \$_$p
done

tschima · 05-03-2008, 09:51 PM

Thanks guys.

Terry