Adjusting $PATH in /etc/profile does not affect root

Question

H

I added a directory to the $PATH variable in /etc/profile. This works for my user account but not for root. It's easy to add it to my /root/.bashrc but I would like to understand whats's wrong. It's a widely unmodified Debian 6 so I think my changes should do the trick.

Here is what my /etc/profile looks like:

# /etc/profile: system-wide .profile file for the Bourne shell (sh(1))
# and Bourne compatible shells (bash(1), ksh(1), ash(1), ...).

if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then
  PATH="/usr/lib/distcc/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"
else
  PATH="/usr/lib/distcc/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games"
fi
export PATH

if [ "$PS1" ]; then
  if [ "$BASH" ]; then
    # The file bash.bashrc already sets the default PS1.
    # PS1='\h:\w\$ '
    if [ -f /etc/bash.bashrc ]; then
      . /etc/bash.bashrc
    fi
  else
    if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then
      PS1='# '
    else
      PS1='$ '
    fi
  fi
fi

# The default umask is now handled by pam_umask.
# See pam_umask(8) and /etc/login.defs.

if [ -d /etc/profile.d ]; then
  for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if [ -r $i ]; then
      . $i
    fi
  done
  unset i
fi

Edit: The path I added is the distcc-stuff. Here is what echo $PATH tells me:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/lib/distcc/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
# echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

Answer 1

You need to run a login shell (or run a non-interactive shell, but that's not what you want) to load /etc/profile.

Use

su - username

or in case of root

su -

to do this.

- is the same as -l or --login and makes the shell a login shell.