LD_LIBRARY_PATH

[Nigel Wade]

Miner, Jonathan W (CSC) (US SSA) wrote:
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From:	redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com on behalf of
> Nigel Wade Sent:	Thu 10/26/2006 04:44 AM To:	General Red Hat Linux discussion
> list Cc: Subject:	Re: LD_LIBRARY_PATH
> 
> Miner, Jonathan W (CSC) (US SSA) wrote:
>> Hi -
>> 
>> I'm trying to investigate a problem that my users are having when trying to
>> set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in their .login files. On RHEL4u4 systems, after they
>> login via gdm and launch a Gnome Terminal, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable is
>> no longer set.  Other variables set in their .login files are properly set.
>> Remote logins via telnet, rlogin, or ssh are not effected by this problem.
>> I've looked into other releases, and see the same behavior in FC4 and FC5,
>> but not in RHL9. According to the users, this problem first started earlier
>> this year, purhaps in March 2006.
>> 
>> There are workarounds:
>> 
>> 1) Configure gnome-terminal to run as a "login shell"
>> 
>> 2) Move LD_LIBRARY_PATH definitions into users' .cshrc files
>> 
>> 3) Add configuration information to the /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ directory.
>> 
>> I'm still trying to figure out what changed to cause this to happen.
>> 
> 
> xdm/gdm use sh/bash whilst they are setting up the session. So, /etc/profile
> is the place to locate system wide environment settings, and
> $HOME/.bash_profile for individual settings.
> 
> It may seem strange, but the users shell setting doesn't come into it until
> the user actually runs gnome-terminal, or whatever X shell they prefer. 
> -------------------------------------------------
> 
> This is not true.  The user's specified shell is envoked by the
> /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession script.  I did discover why LD_LIBRARY_PATH is being
> dropped from the environment.  The problem is that ssh-agent is sgid, and
> according to the ld.so man page, LD_LIBRARY_PATH is ignored by suid/sgid
> programs; not only is it ignored, it is also not passed along to child
> processes either.
> 
> 

Ooops, yes, silly me. That'll teach me to check the setup *before* running any 
tests...

I was setup to use NX for login, not xdm/gdm. The way NX handles the session 
means that the initial user shell isn't invoked as a login shell, and it 
explicitly runs ~/.bash_profile before starting the session.

-- 
Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
             University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
E-mail :    nmw at ion.le.ac.uk
Phone :     +44 (0)116 2523548, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555