[CentOS] Strange su behavior after installing latest CentOS updates

Fri Jun 15 17:14:35 UTC 2012
Alfred von Campe <alfred at von-campe.com>

I did a "yum update" on my CentOS 6 systems yesterday for the first time in about a month and now have some automated processes failing because the PATH is not set up correctly when using "su".  The problem is very easy to see by comparing the output of the following two commands:

    # su - <user> -c "env | grep PATH"
    # su <user> -c "env | grep PATH"

Before yesterday's update, and on any CentOS 6.2 systems without the latest (in the last month) updates and all CentOS 5.8 systems, PATH contained anything that was set in /etc/profile.d, but it appears that it does not run anything in that directory after yesterday's update.  As I mentioned before, this is breaking a lot of automated process that relied on the PATH being set correctly when doing a "su - <user> -c ...".  Is this a known issue?  Is anyone else affected by it?  In case it matters, I'll include the list of all the packages that were installed yesterday at the end of this message.

Thanks,
Alfred



Installed:
  kernel.i686 0:2.6.32-220.17.1.el6   kernel-devel.i686 0:2.6.32-220.17.1.el6

Updated:
  ImageMagick.i686 0:6.5.4.7-6.el6_2
  apr.i686 0:1.3.9-5.el6_2
  autocorr-en.noarch 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  bash.i686 0:4.1.2-9.el6_2
  bind-libs.i686 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.3
  bind-utils.i686 32:9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.3
  epel-release.noarch 0:6-7
  expat.i686 0:2.0.1-11.el6_2
  firefox.i686 0:10.0.5-1.el6.centos
  flash-plugin.i686 0:11.2.202.236-0.1.el6.rf
  gnome-power-manager.i686 0:2.28.3-6.el6_2
  google-chrome-stable.i386 0:19.0.1084.56-140965
  java-1.6.0-openjdk.i686 1:1.6.0.0-1.48.1.11.3.el6_2
  java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel.i686 1:1.6.0.0-1.48.1.11.3.el6_2
  java-1.6.0-openjdk-javadoc.i686 1:1.6.0.0-1.48.1.11.3.el6_2
  kernel-firmware.noarch 0:2.6.32-220.17.1.el6
  kernel-headers.i686 0:2.6.32-220.17.1.el6
  libatasmart.i686 0:0.17-4.el6_2
  libsmbclient.i686 0:3.5.10-116.el6_2
  net-tools.i686 0:1.60-110.el6_2
  nfs-utils.i686 1:1.2.3-15.el6_2.1
  openoffice.org-brand.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-calc.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-calc-core.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-core.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-draw.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-draw-core.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-graphicfilter.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-impress.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-impress-core.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-langpack-en.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-math.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-math-core.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-opensymbol-fonts.noarch 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-pdfimport.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-presenter-screen.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-ure.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-writer.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-writer-core.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openoffice.org-xsltfilter.i686 1:3.2.1-19.6.el6_2.7
  openssl.i686 0:1.0.0-20.el6_2.5
  openssl-devel.i686 0:1.0.0-20.el6_2.5
  postgresql-libs.i686 0:8.4.11-1.el6_2
  samba.i686 0:3.5.10-116.el6_2
  samba-client.i686 0:3.5.10-116.el6_2
  samba-common.i686 0:3.5.10-116.el6_2
  samba-winbind-clients.i686 0:3.5.10-116.el6_2
  socat.i686 0:1.7.2.1-1.el6.rf
  sos.noarch 0:2.2-17.el6_2.3
  sudo.i686 0:1.7.4p5-9.el6_2
  tcsh.i686 0:6.17-19.el6_2
  tzdata.noarch 0:2012c-1.el6
  tzdata-java.noarch 0:2012c-1.el6
  xulrunner.i686 0:10.0.5-1.el6.centos