Error accessing mercurial with non-root user - linux

I am trying to give a non-root user the ability to run mercurial commands from the shell. When I log in as the user and type "hg", I get this message:
abort: couldn't find mercurial libraries in [/usr/local/bin /usr/lib/python24.zip /usr/lib/python2.4 /usr/lib/python2.4/plat-linux2 /usr/lib/python2.4/lib-tk /usr/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/Numeric /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/gtk-2.0]
(check your install and PYTHONPATH)
I do not have this problem as the root. I can run mercurial commands from any directory.
My problem is that I'm not very familiar with Linux at all, and so I don't know exactly how I'm supposed to change my PYTHONPATH variable (if indeed that's what I'm trying to do). I don't even know where the PYTHONPATH variable is being stored to see what's written there now.
Can someone tell me where the PYTHONPATH (or even regular PATH) environment variable is stored in Linux, and what steps I might take to remove the error method I'm getting above? If it helps, I'm using Putty and SSH to access the server.
Thanks! :)

The PYTHONPATH is just an environment variable that gets prepended to the python's internal search path. To see what is in there, do the following in python shell:
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
It should print something like:
['', '/usr/lib64/python27.zip', '/usr/lib64/python2.7', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/plat-linux2', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/lib-tk', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/lib-old', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/lib-dynload', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/PIL', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gst-0.10', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gtk-2.0', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/webkit-1.0', '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode', '/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg-info']
In practice, I would guess your shell is bash so the places where the environment variables can be set are:
/etc/profile, /etc/bashrc, ~/.profile and ~/.bashrc - the first 2 being system wide and the latter per user.
For further explanation, see this blog article abour bashrc and profile
EDIT
To fix this, the probably the easiest way is to install Mercurial via pip (I am assuming that you do not have Mercurial in the official repository for your Linux distribution, but usually python-setuptools or similar, that provides easy_install is). See this question for instructions.

Related

How to change default directory for a command in Bash?

Firstly, I am new to Linux so excuse me if any terminology is wrong; I'll try to phrase the problem as competently as possible.
I have installed Ruby (2.4.0) via Linuxbrew. The ruby command works fine; it installed correctly. However, when I try to use the gem command (which Ruby should have installed) I receive this error:
bash: /usr/bin/gem: No such file or directory
Now, because I installed this with Linuxbrew I know that this directory isn't correct. For example:
result of which gem : /home/me/.linuxbrew/bin/gem
result of which ruby : /home/me/.linuxbrew/bin/ruby
Therefore, it seems gem is installed but the gem command isn't linked to the correct path. I assume I need to direct the gem command to the path of which gem as opposed to /usr/bin/gem that bash is saying doesn't exist. How would I go about changing this? I tried in vain to change the bash_profile but I'm not sure what to do.
Again, excuse me if ruby and gem are not referred to as commands and if the problem isn't the "default directory" as stated in the title. I wasn't sure how to label it.
EDIT/TL;DR:
Basically, how can I make gem execute this: /home/me/.linuxbrew/bin/gem instead of looking for the program in /usr/bin/gem?
Instead of running gem, run /home/me/.linuxbrew/bin/gem, i.e. type the full path name (followed by any arguments you may need).
If this becomes too tiresome, you could change your PATH. Prepend your bin directory with
PATH=$HOME/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH
First, the reason you get the error /usr/bin/gem not found, is that earlier in the same shell session, the file used to be there. Bash will cache this to speed things up when running the same command many times. Running hash -r will clear this.
Editing PATH you seem to have managed, hence the which command gives the result it does.
To answer my own question-
As I had previously installed and uninstalled Ruby via apt-get instead of Linuxbrew in the same Terminal window, Bash was looking for gem in usr/bin as opposed to the path specified in my bash_profile to Linuxbrew.
Therefore, Stian's answer above with hash -r would also work, I am sure.

Installing a second instance of Bash (with different config)

I have repackaged a Bash RPM to include automatic logging to syslog. I am trying to work out a way to set this up so that it is used ONLY when a user or service account runs a command as root. The option I'm looking at is installing this version of Bash to an alternate location, and then pointing root to use that version as it's default shell.
Can someone go through the process of installing this RPM to an alternate path and associating the root account to it as the default shell? I have been having difficulty finding a way to do this when searching online.
Since you are repackaging the RPM, it is probably best to change the destination path directly in the RPM.
As for the default shell, run chsh -s /path/to/your/bash root to change it.
Be aware that this solution may not work for all purposes though. For example, running a script that starts with #!/bin/bash will still execute it with /bin/bash instead of your default login shell.

How to customize which Windows $PATH environment variables are imported into Cygwin?

I would like to customize the $PATH variables included in the Cygwin environment, how can I do this? One solution I know of is to add the following line to the end of the Cygwin.bat file:
PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"
By default the shortcut starts bin/mintty.exe, how can I change that default behavior?
All Windows environment variables are included in your Cygwin environment automatically on startup. If you'd like to customize what they are, you can overwrite the whole $PATH variable using a line similar to what you already mentioned in your Cygwin.bat file:
PATH="colon:separated:list:of:all:paths"
Also if you'd like to change which terminal is used by Cygwin, one alternative is rxvt.
Another popular solution seems to be using PuttyCyg to putty directly into your Cygwin installation to get the benefits of the Putty terminal. See the effective-cygwin
GitHub page for setup instructions and more.
See this stackoverflow post for a full list of suggested alternatives to the default Cygwin terminal.

How to set a windows env variable from cygwin .bashrc?

Background: I am trying to run a windows-installed version of python from within cygwin, rather than the cygwin version (some packages I am using prefer the non-cygwin version). The following post got me up and running: Using Windows Python from Cygwin. However, I am now having an issue.
Problem: The PYTHONPATH variable does not seem to be working for me. I try "import module1" when I am using python in an arbitrary directory. module1 is located here: c:\cygwin\home\mcsefl\testFolder\module1.py. And my PYTHONPATH variable is set in my .bashrc file in the following way: "export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/home/mcsefl/testFolder". However I still get a "No module named..." error.
Alternate tries: Since I am running the Windows Python, I thought perhaps python did not care about the cygwin environment variables (not sure if this is true..?) So, I also tried to set the windows PYTHONPATH env variable in the control panel of windows with no luck as well.
Thanks in advance
I deleted the line in my .bashrc file that tried to set the PYTHONPATH variable and just let it be set by Windows. This corrects the problem.
Side note: The title for this Question is a misnomer now that I re-read it. My issue was resolved without addressing that overall question

Environment Variable not being passed to CruiseControl, specifically the 'nodosfilewarnings' ENV variable from Cygwin

I have a Perl program that someone else created and I am calling on with CruiseControl. The program calls on Unix Commands using Cygwin. However, everytime that the Perl program calls on a Unix like command with a DOS like address, I get the well known error:
cygwin warning:
MS-DOS style path detected: E:\regression
Preferred POSIX equivalent is: /cygdrive/e/regression
CYGWIN environment variable option "nodosfilewarning" turns off this warning.
Consult the user's guide for more details about POSIX paths:
http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#using-pathnames
I have set both the User Variable AND System Variable CYGWIN to nodosfilewarning. This removes the error when I run the program from the command line, but the error still occurs in CruiseControl when called as an automated process from a batch file. I have called on both the batch file from the Desktop AND Command Line and ran as an administrator. Nothing changes.
Other Notes
For purposes of this problem, I don't have access to the Perl Program
I am trying to go back to Cygwin 1.5.*, but since I am using Server 2008, I am encountering compatibility issues
This is occurring on one of the distributed servers, not the main server running the Webdashboard.
I have read somewhere that this issue may stem from a different user calling on CruiseControl, but the issue should have been solved by setting this as an ENV System variable
Is it possible to modify the registery to set the ENV variables?
Thank you in advance
The way I do it is like this
printf 'export CYGWIN=nodosfilewarning' >> ~/.bash_profile
If CruiseControl is connecting to the server via ssh, reinstall sshd and explicitly include nodosfilewarning when prompted for the CYGWIN environment variable during the install.
Re-installing with modified environment will work but if you don't want to or cannot re-install, an alternative is to change the registry instead of re-installing the service.
See: CYGWIN windows cygrunsrv sshd server and MS-DOS style path detected

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