[Bug 1711254] Re: 16.04.3 deployments include non-existent directories in $PATH

[Steve Langasek]

~/.bin and ~/.local/bin are added to the path by /etc/skel/.profile
which is shipped in the bash package.

It's debatable whether these should be added to the path
unconditionally, or only if they exist.  It is convenient to have the
directories automatically available on the path as soon as they are
created, without having to relogin / re-source the shell config;
conversely, it means a couple of extra pointless stats on every exec()
call.

Regardless, though, I don't think it's correct that your certification
suite should throw errors as a result of directories on the PATH not
being present on the filesystem.

** Package changed: base-files (Ubuntu) => bash (Ubuntu)

** Changed in: bash (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Low

** Changed in: bash (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Triaged

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Title:
  16.04.3 deployments include non-existent directories in $PATH

Status in bash package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in snapd package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Noticed this while doing regression testing on 16.04.3, and a number
  of customers have asked with concerns as well during their testing.

  I don't know exactly when this started, but we just started noticing
  it with 16.04.3 (4.10) but $PATH by default now includes several
  directories that do not exist:

  
  ubuntu at above-ox:~$ find $(echo "$PATH" | sed -e 's/:/ /g') -maxdepth 1 -type dfind: ‘/home/ubuntu/bin’: No such file or directory
  find: ‘/home/ubuntu/.local/bin’: No such file or directory
  /usr/local/sbin
  /usr/local/bin
  /usr/sbin
  /usr/bin
  /sbin
  /bin
  /usr/games
  /usr/local/games
  find: ‘/snap/bin’: No such file or directory

  We noticed this because it was causing a resource job in the
  certification suite to suddenly start failing (the failure was not
  catastrophic, but it did appear to customers who were concerned.

  I've verified this on both s390x and amd64 16.04.3 deployments via
  MAAS 2.2.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
  Package: linux-image-4.10.0-32-generic 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1-generic 4.10.17
  Uname: Linux 4.10.0-32-generic s390x
  ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.10
  Architecture: s390x
  Date: Wed Aug 16 18:59:34 2017
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en.US_UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: linux-hwe
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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