Bash cannot see PATH update

Question

I am running Debian on a VM. I login to the GUI and go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal.

# echo shell: /bin/bash

I modified ENV_SUPATH, ENV_PATH inside of /etc/login.defs. I restarted the shell. In superuser mode echo $PATH shows my update. In normal mode echo $PATH does not show my update. I added and modified ~/.bash_profile. I still can't see my change and I'm starting to chase my tail.

/etc/login.defs contents:

ENV_SUPATH      PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/home/brian/.linuxbrew/bin
ENV_PATH        PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games:/home/brian/.linuxbrew/bin

~/.bash_profile:

PATH=/home/brian/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH

How can I troubleshoot and resolve this?

Answer 1

Short answer: also adjust /etc/profile (and /etc/sudoers carefully)

Long answer: The PATH variable is defined in multiple places.

According to login.defs(5), only su uses it.

The sudo has it's own secure PATH definition in /etc/sudoers (variable secure_path=...)

Most Unix shell will read /etc/profile and ~/.profile. In Debian, this file is used to define login shell's PATH. Bash also reads ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login.

...and probably more (run grep '\<PATH\>' /etc/ -R)