Why the Bamboo $PATH variable is different

[homeniuk]

Hi,

I would like to know why the command echo $PATH is different in terminal and Bamboo CLI Task. In Terminal looks like

bamboo@vagrant-ubuntu-trusty-64:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/home/bamboo/.rvm/bin

and within the task like this

22-Dec-2014 10:48:14
Starting task 'echo $PATH' of type 'com.atlassian.bamboo.plugins.scripttask:task.builder.script'
22-Dec-2014 10:48:14
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
22-Dec-2014 10:48:14
Finished task 'echo $PATH' with result: Success

Any idea why this both commands return different results?

[Mike Friedrich · Accepted solution]

Paths are derived from parent processes and if there is none from the users and the global profile (Linux service). So basically the path depends on how a process is started.

[homeniuk]

Hi @Mike Friedrich, thanks for your answer! The solution of my problem was the following line in the startup script in /etc/init.d. /bin/su -m $USER -c "cd $BASE/logs && $BASE/bin/startup.sh &> /dev/null" I replace the -m argument with an normal hyphen (-), so the bamboo start with login shell of the bamboo user /bin/su - $USER -c "cd $BASE/logs && $BASE/bin/startup.sh &> /dev/null"

[Mike Friedrich]

I would always prefer the single dash way, also for security reasons. Make sure there is no variable in the init script which the startup.sh needs.

[Paul Fink]

I agree with MIke. You could set the PATH in startup.sh that way its not dependent on the interactive login account.