Dangerous $PATH

[Lekensteyn]

Your path is currently set to something like .:~/bin:/bin/usr/bin:$PATH. Some notes on it:

• When running a program, the program will be searched from left to right
• Including relative directories (and especially the current directory) is insecure. Assume someone sends you a tarball which you extract, cd into and then run ls while the tarball has a ls file too
• It would make more sense to use ~/bin:/usr/local/{s,}bin:/usr/{s,}bin:/{s,}bin:$PATH (apply expansion before setting it) according to man hier

[pjg]

Good point! I only don't understand one thing: "apply expansion before setting it" -- what should I do exactly before setting my PATH to the above? If it's about ~ I'd rather have it like this as I'm using this .bash_profile both for root and local user.

[Lekensteyn]

Well, I was too lazy to write out /{s,}bin to /sbin:/bin, that's what I meant by expanding.

[pjg]

Ah! Applying :)