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Views: 9,949     Votes:  4 
Tags: bash   java   environment-variables   bashrc   .profile  
Link: 🔍 See Original Answer on Ask Ubuntu ⧉ 🔗

URL: https://askubuntu.com/q/1069939
Title: Where is my PATH variable being set?
ID: /2018/08/28/Where-is-my-PATH-variable-being-set_
Created: August 28, 2018    Edited:  September 30, 2018
Upload: March 26, 2024    Layout:  post
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To find all places where $PATH environment variable is changed use this:

sudo grep -rnw --exclude-dir={boot,dev,lib,media,mnt,proc,root,run,sys,/tmp,tmpfs,var} '/' -e "PATH="

This will search all directories on your system excluding virtual file system directories. In my case with three distros mounted, 697 files are returned.


A more targeted approach for OP is to search for specific path name. You could look for the program that is setting the unusual part of $PATH containing:

/usr/local/java/jdk1.7.0_79/bin

Run this in the terminal:

sudo grep -rnw --exclude-dir={boot,dev,lib,media,mnt,proc,root,run,sys,/tmp,tmpfs,var} '/' -e "/usr/local/java/jdk1.7.0_79/bin"

If the first directory in the $PATH is not the culprit then search for the last one:

/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin

grep will return the name of the script / file that is setting the $PATH.

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