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About

The PATH environment variable is a list of which directories Linux will search for for executable files.

As in DOS, the shell uses the PATH variable to locate a command. PATH contains a list of directories separated by colons: When you enter a command, the shell search it in each of the directories specified in the PATH value trying to find it.

If it can't find it, you'll see a “Command not found” message.

How

to Manage it?

To manipulate and to change it, refer to this article: Bash - (Environment) Variable. Below is simple snippet.

See it

[root@ebs121 lib]# echo $PATH
/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin

See if a command is in your path

To see if a command is in your path, you can use the which command: 

$ which mycommand

Change it for the session scope

To change your PATH variable to include a directory in a session scope: 

[root@ebs121 lib]# export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
[root@ebs121 lib]# echo $PATH
/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin:/root/bin

You can remark the root bin at the end. It was added.

Of you can add it permanently by adding this line in a shell startup script

Docker

  • To set it globally for all users
RUN echo "export PATH=$PATH:/whatever" >> /etc/profile

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