Error message with ldconfig etc. coming up in Debian all the time

[ntg]

Whenever I try to purge an installed application, or when I try to install others (it's not specific to an app per se) I get the following error:

dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable.
dpkg: warning: 'start-stop-daemon' not found in PATH or not executable.
dpkg: error: 2 expected programs not found in PATH or not executable.
Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

I've tried updating the SIDs but not sure if I did it right, checked the usual google results but no joy.

Any ideas?

I'm a complete newbie by the way and I'm using a VPN that runs Debian.

 

[ntg]

As root what is you PATH set to be?

echo $PATH

It is:

/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin


One of the solutions I had found was suggesting the following:

The simple solution is to modify in /etc/sudoers
Defaults env_reset
Defaults secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

Does that mean (I just realised it) I should replace the secure_path path with the /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin instead?

 

[ntg]

No, don't do that as your removing the references to the very directories you want. Theoretically with that there access to the commands via sudo should gain that PATH and work.

I don't have a debian boxes here to look at but looking at a CentOS 5 box here in the lab root's PATH is set to be:

/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin

where the three sbin entries are added through /etc/profile for users with an effective UID of 0 (i.e. root). (Ignore that I don't have /usr/X11R6/bin in that PATH; I don't have X installed on that server).

With sudo it looks to be a bit more complex with it having the ability to over-ride some environment variables. I suggest you have a read about the sudo env_keep option

Thanks I'll look into that. I'll be changing to Ubuntu soon so I guess that may solve the problem anyway.