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linuxubuntuterminalsudo

Command without sudo works but requires sudo

I have already solved this problem but I do not know why this solves the problem and I don't like not knowing what went wrong. I'm using the terminal on Ubuntu

Here was the issue...

  1. If I run $ ngm -args it runs but fails because it requires sudo

  2. If I run $ sudo ngm -args I get the error like ngm not found

  3. If I run $ sudo /usr/local/lib/ngm -args it runs with sudo and works perfectly.

I don't understand why the 3 works and 2 doesn't work.

Solution

  • When trying to run $ ngm -args, the shell will look for the executable in it's $PATH variable, and it finds it. When trying to run the executable it finds that it has to be sudo and exits.
    When you run $ sudo ngm -args, the shell will look for the executable in the $PATH environment of the Root user, and it can't find it.
    When running it like the last option, the shell doesn't need to look in the $PATH of the root user, because it finds it in the path that you specified /usr/local/lib/ngm, so both issues are gone.

    This might be a starting point in order to understand the PATH