On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 10:20:59AM -0400, Gene Heskett enlightened us:
> When doing it as amanda, with amanda's full $PATH, /usr/local/sbin, 
> where all of amanda's executables live, is NOT in the $PATH.
> 
> Adding it to ~/.bash_profile seems to allow it to survive the 
> pathmunge'ing being done in /etc/profile, so I'm A) confused as to why 
> it does, and B) in any event, is there a good reason to dis-allow 
> access to /usr/local/sbin for the normal user?
> 
> Explain it to me please.

Generally speaking, {foo}/sbin directories are system commands that normal
users shouldn't/needn't be running. There are obvious exceptions to the
rule, but you'll find at least on RedHat-like systems that no "normal" user
has access to /sbin, /usr/sbin, etc. by default. For those special cases,
you can just add it to the path of the necessary user as you did with the
.bash_profile.

Matt

-- 
Matt Hyclak
Department of Mathematics 
Department of Social Work
Ohio University
(740) 593-1263