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Accepted
Farooq
Asked: 2014-03-13 00:33:24 +0800 CST

The command could not be located because '/sbin' is not included in the PATH environment variable

  • 772

I have a severe problem today: when I type ifconfig it does not show ip configuration on ubuntu 12.04. Can anyone help me on this?

Here is the result of ifconfig:

Command 'ifconfig' is available in '/sbin/ifconfig'
The command could not be located because '/sbin' is not included in the PATH environment variable.
This is most likely caused by the lack of administrative privileges associated with your user account.
ifconfig: command not found
ifconfig

4 Answers

  1. You can do either of the following:

    • Open your ~/.bashrc file and write the following to the end:

      export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

    and then do source ~/.bashrc or open a new terminal instance.

    • or open your /etc/environment and add /sbin to end of the PATH variable, so that is as follows:

      PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/games:/sbin"
    • 33

  2. Add /sbin to the system path by running,

    export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

    If you follow @nux's answer, you have to create symbolic links for all the command files which are presented inside /sbin directory.But if you follow this or @jobin's answer, you don't need to go for that.

    • 3

  3. You'll need to add /sbin to your path environment variable

    1. Create a new file in /etc/profile.d/custom-envs.sh (file must ends with .sh)

      set the following file content:

      export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

    2. Add execute permissions

      sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/custom-envs.sh

    To apply changes, you'll need to logout and login again

    • 2
  4. Best Answer

    Try this command :

    sudo ln -s /sbin/ifconfig /usr/bin/ifconfig
    • -8