Setting TeX Live path for root
I have installed TeX Live 2011 vanilla and I have trouble setting the TeX Live path for root (in Ubuntu 11.10).
The problem is that when I run sudo tlmgr I get:
sudo: tlmgr: command not found
To fix the path for non-root it was sufficient to add
PATH=/usr/local/texlive/2011/bin/x86_64-linux:$PATH
to /etc/profile.
I have tried adding this same line to /root/.bashrc and I have also tried to add it to /etc/profile.d/zzz-texlive.sh like Herbert suggest in https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/26624/tlmgr-inaccessible/26626#26626 but it does not help.
Quick fix: since you already have the correct $PATH set in your
environment (via the /etc/profile modifications) you can use:
sudo env PATH="$PATH" tlmgr
Basically, sudo resets the value of
$PATH (the whole environment, indeed) to a "known good" one, and is
thus ignoring any changes you made to your local environment. The
env command above sets the PATH variable
in the environment of the tlmgr it executes, so it runs with the
value of $PATH you specify on the command line.
To avoid typing all that for each TeXlive command, you can define an
alias in your shell: add the following line to the .bashrc file in
your home:
alias psudo='sudo env PATH="$PATH"'
and then you can simply issue this at a command prompt:
psudo tlmgr
In addition, sudo does not run a login shell to execute the command, which is why your "profile.d" tricks did not work for root. You can force sudo to execute a command in a shell, which is an alternate way of achieving the same effect:
sudo sh -l -c tlmgr
Again you can define a shell command alias to shorten this:
alias shsudo='sudo sh -l -c'
which can be used as:
shsudo tlmgr
If you add the symlinks then you won't need to make a script. You can do this two ways:
Using the GUI:
-
sudo env PATH="$PATH" tlmgr --gui. - Click 'Actions -> Handle symlinks in system dirs'.
- Click 'Update symbolic links'.
Using the command line (untested, since I used the GUI):
-
sudo env PATH="$PATH" tlmgr path add. (find more information at tlmgr documentation)
What worked for me: I started tlmgr in gui mode with
sudo env PATH="$PATH" tlmgr --gui
and then in the third menu chose the last item but one (in my German menu, that is menu "Aktionen" (actions?) and item "Verwaltung der symbolischen Links" (administration of symbolic links?). In the ensuing dialogue window I clicked the button "Symbolische Links erneuern" (renew symbolic links?). Now
sudo tlmgr --OPTIONS
works without problems. I'm sure there's also a command line way of doing this ;)
To pass the user's $PATH to sudo I modified /etc/sudoers file using the visudo command and add the following line:
Defaults exempt_group=<group that I belong to>
Now I can execute (e.g.)
sudo tlmgr update all
or
sudo texhash
and everything works perfect.
I would greatly appreciate any comments on this approach.