Challenge ·Easy

Fix a Broken $PATH So Commands Work Again

Mister P
by  Mister P · on
Linux
The laborant user's PATH has been corrupted, causing common commands to fail with "command not found". Diagnose and fix the broken PATH so that standard system commands work again.
#bash#path#shell#troubleshooting

The laborant user's ~/.bashrc has been modified and now sets a broken $PATH, causing standard commands like ls, cat, and id to fail with command not found in every new shell session.

Fix the PATH permanently so that:

  • Standard system commands (ls, cat, id, etc.) work in new shell sessions
  • /usr/bin and /usr/sbin are present in $PATH
  • The fix persists across logins (i.e., survives opening a new terminal)

Complete the task on rocky-01 as the laborant user.

Hint 1 — Where to look

Shell environment variables set at login come from configuration files in the user's home directory. Start by examining what's in ~/.bashrc.

Hint 2 — Diagnosing the problem

Run echo $PATH in your current session. If you see only /home/laborant/bin or similar, the PATH has been overwritten. Look for a line near the bottom of ~/.bashrc that starts with export PATH=.

Hint 3 — Fixing the PATH

Remove or edit the broken export PATH= line in ~/.bashrc. A healthy Rocky Linux 9 PATH for a regular user looks like:

/home/laborant/.local/bin:/home/laborant/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin

You can restore it with:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin

Then make it permanent by updating ~/.bashrc.

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