best way to fix PATH on the target machine?

[bad]

While trying to use the file.block() operation as root on a NetBSD target I discovered that /sbin and /usr/sbin are not in the PATH of the shell started from the SSH connection. And therefore chown(1) isn't available.

Why specifically it is this way isn't really relevant here. However, the PATH is set up correctly if a PTY is requested for the SSH channel. Requesting a PTY isn't desirable anyway because, apparently, that mixes up stdout and stderr.

NB: it is easily conceivable that pyinfra has to "fix" the PATH for other reasons. E.g. to customise it because of special needs for custom operations.

It is not difficult to change the target machine configuration so that subsequent logins via SSH have the correct PATH. However, that is a two-step process: first ensure the correct PATH is configured, second cause pyinfra to terminate affected SSH connections and reconnect.

What is the best way to achieve this?

Cheers,
--chris

[maisim]

Hi,
https://docs.pyinfra.com/en/3.x/arguments.html#shell-control-features
I think you can choose the shell with _shell_executable or update the PATH environment variables using _env
Regards,

[bad]

Thanks for the pointer to _env.
I've ended up using the following:

# fix up the PATH to include the sbin directories if necessary
path = host.get_fact(Path)
if "/sbin" not in path:
    config.ENV['PATH'] = '/usr/sbin:/sbin:' + path

Not ideal with many hosts and not to happy having to globally modify PATH, but I had to make progress.
--chris