[Linux] Supporting Utilities - symlinks does not work

After install RD 0.6.0 on openSUSE Leap, the supporting utilities symlink does not work properly. Executing commands from konsole like: kubectl , nerdctl and/or helm, the symlink does not resolve the path. Even though the tools are correctly installed into the system, you need to pass the entire tool path to get it working: e.g: /home/test/.local/bin/kubectl version - instead just kubectl version

To Reproduce –> Fresh openSUSE Leap install (VMBox nested virtualization ON)

1. Download latest development RD rpm package from GitActions
2. Install using sudo zypper install [RD-Dev-Package].rpm
3. Open rancher-desktop
4. Wait until the app being loaded
5. Open the terminal and type: kubectl version or helm version
6. Should see the following error: see results

Result

localhost:/home/test # kubectl version
If 'kubectl' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
    cnf kubectl
localhost:/home/test # helm version
If 'helm' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
    cnf helm
localhost:/home/test # nerdctl ps
If 'nerdctl' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
    cnf nerdctl
localhost:/home/test # kim version
If 'kim' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
    cnf kim
localhost:/home/test # 

Expected behaviour Running supporting tools from terminal without passing the entire file path.

Screenshots Without full path:

With full path:

Logs symlink_RD_060_logs.zip

Setup (please complete the following information):

• OS: openSUSE Leap 15.3
• KDE Plasma: 5.18.6
• Rancher Desktop version: 0.6.0
• Kubernetes version: 1.21.5

Additional context N/A

[juliogonzalez]

Hello,

The Maintenance Update for aaa_base took longer than expected, as it had to be merged with another fix that required some validation.

But I am happy to announce that aaa_base version 84.87+git20180409.04c9dae-3.52.1 for openSUSE Leap 15.3 is released and contains:

* mié nov 03 2021 [e-mail]
- Add git-36-16d1cb895c2742e96a56af98111f8281bedd3188.patch:
  * Add $HOME/.local/bin to PATH, if it exists (bsc#1192248)

So the problem should be fixed now. If @evertonlperes can validate, I guess this issue can be closed (warning: you will need to close and start your session again, after you update the package)

PS: Tumbleweed was fixed almost one month ago.

[juliogonzalez]

This is because $HOME/.local/bin is not part of your default distro $PATH. As an example common distro $PATH are:

openSUSE Leap: $HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin Ubuntu 21.04: $HOME/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin

On Debian and Ubuntu $HOME/bin is only added to PATH if the directory exists.

However, at least on Debian10 and Debian11, I do not have $HOME/.local/bin at PATH (servers, no GUI). I checked Ubuntu 20.04 and 21.04 using Docker containers and the same happens.

Something tells me that $HOME/.local/bin get added to PATH by a package that installs files at /etc/profile.d.

Did you check with a machine that as GUI?

Fedora 34: $HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin:/usr/lib64/ccache:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

Note there is not a common path under $HOME for all these three distros. When I coded that part I took the path ~/.local/bin since this is aligned with XDG Base Directory specs:

User-specific executable files may be stored in $HOME/.local/bin. Distributions should ensure this directory shows up in the UNIX $PATH environment variable, at an appropriate place.

and this is already followed, at least, by Fedora and Ubuntu. I have no idea why openSUSE is not including this path…

In order to facilitate user interaction we could add some logic in RD to discover any path under $HOME as part of $PATH and then use that and treat ~/.local/bin as the default fallback if none is found.

Since this is a desktop application, I think this should be fixed somewhere at openSUSE.

FMPOV the best approach is fixing the package aaa_base to add ~/.local/bin to PATH if the directory exists, as in the end the package already checks a lot of other directories (/etc/profile):

if test -z "$PROFILEREAD" ; then
    PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
    if test "$HOME" != "/" ; then
        for dir in $HOME/bin/$CPU $HOME/bin ; do
            test -d $dir && PATH=$dir:$PATH
        done
    fi
    if test "$UID" = 0 ; then
        test -d /opt/kde3/sbin  && PATH=/opt/kde3/sbin:$PATH
        PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH
    fi
    for dir in  /usr/X11/bin \
                /usr/X11R6/bin \
                /var/lib/dosemu \
                /usr/games \
                /opt/bin \
                /opt/kde3/bin \
                /opt/kde2/bin \
                /opt/kde/bin \
                /usr/openwin/bin \
                /opt/cross/bin
    do
        test -d $dir && PATH=$PATH:$dir
    done
    unset dir
    export PATH
fi

@davidcassany @evertonlperes I will try to prepare submit requests for openSUSE Factory (tumbleweed), Leap 15.3, and maybe 15.2

Then users will just need to close their session and open it again to get ~/.local/bin as part of PATH

Rancher Desktop can still merge the PR, of course, but FMPOV this looks like a problem to be fixed on the affected distributions 😃