Re: [HTCondor-users] Condor unsetting PATH and setting only variable and not environment

[Todd Tannenbaum <tannenba@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am sad that Zach felt compelled to write a wrapper script to deal with this. 

At least for Bash, the default PATH when not explicitly set is hard-coded within the Bash executable to be

   /user/local/bin:/user/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin

Sounds like folks in this thread feel that HTCondor should do the same when launching a job that does not explicitly specify a PATH ?   Makes sense to me. 

regards,
Todd T

On 6/16/2025 1:29 PM, Zach McGrew wrote:

> I noticed this a while back as well, I just assumed it was more env variable cleanup/removal for reproducible research purposes. i.e. If you have a different env from the next submitter you get different results, so set the env to the minimum viable env.
>
> I just started setting a PATH in my wrapper scripts and telling my users to do the same:
>
> # Set a sane PATH. HTCondor can eat the default.
> export PATH="${PATH:+${PATH}:}/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin"
>
>
>
> This submission file will print the environment and exit, and my output results are below (err is empty as expected). You'll notice there's no PATH:
>
> executable = /usr/bin/env
> output = logs/out
> error  = logs/err
> log    = logs/condor_log
> queue
>
>
> And results:
>
>
> _CONDOR_ANCESTOR_14582=16437:1742407785:660241318
> _CONDOR_ANCESTOR_16437=614845:1750097658:297724199
> _CONDOR_ANCESTOR_614845=614850:1750097658:3023395836
> APPTAINER_CACHEDIR=/var/lib/condor/execute/dir_614845
> BATCH_SYSTEM=HTCondor
> CUBACORES=1
> CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=10000
> GOMAXPROCS=1
> GPU_DEVICE_ORDINAL=10000
> JULIA_NUM_THREADS=1
> MKL_NUM_THREADS=1
> NUMEXPR_NUM_THREADS=1
> NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=none
> OMP_NUM_THREADS=1
> OMP_THREAD_LIMIT=1
> OPENBLAS_NUM_THREADS=1
> PYTHON_CPU_COUNT=1
> ROOT_MAX_THREADS=1
> SINGULARITY_CACHEDIR=/var/lib/condor/execute/dir_614845
> TEMP=/tmp
> TF_LOOP_PARALLEL_ITERATIONS=1
> TF_NUM_THREADS=1
> TMP=/tmp
> TMPDIR=/tmp
> _CHIRP_DELAYED_UPDATE_PREFIX=Chirp*
> _CONDOR_AssignedGPUs=10000
> _CONDOR_BIN=/usr/bin
> _CONDOR_CHIRP_CONFIG=/var/lib/condor/execute/dir_614845/.chirp.config
> _CONDOR_JOB_AD=/var/lib/condor/execute/dir_614845/.job.ad
> _CONDOR_JOB_IWD=/cluster/home/mcgrewz/example_submit_scripts/basic
> _CONDOR_JOB_PIDS=
> _CONDOR_MACHINE_AD=/var/lib/condor/execute/dir_614845/.machine.ad
> _CONDOR_SCRATCH_DIR=/var/lib/condor/execute/dir_614845
> _CONDOR_SLOT=slot1_1
>
>
>
> -Zach
>
> ________________________________________
> From: HTCondor-users <htcondor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Todd L Miller via HTCondor-users <htcondor-users@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, June 16, 2025 11:06 AM
> To: Marco Mambelli via HTCondor-users
> Cc: Todd L Miller
> Subject: Re: [HTCondor-users] Condor unsetting PATH and setting only variable and not environment
>
> > When submitting jobs they have PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin and no PATH
> > variable in the environment.
> >
> > 1. I don't know where the PATH is coming from
> > - The PATH of the user the job is running under is different
> > - This is at the beginning of my job
> > 2. Why is only the variable set and not the environment?
> > - This causes problems with shell scripts because PATH is undefined in subprocesses (e.g. commands executed in the script)
> >       
>         I don't understand:
>
> (a) PATH is definitionally the PATH variable in the environment.  You
>      can't "have a PATH" if PATH isn't set in the environment.  What are
>      you trying to say here?
> (b) Given the questions, presumably you meant "When my jobs run," not
>      "When submitting jobs"?
>
>         Please send a submit file and shell script that demonstrate the
> problem.
>
> -- ToddM
>     
-- 
Todd Tannenbaum <tannenba@xxxxxxxxxxx>  University of Wisconsin-Madison
Center for High Throughput Computing    Department of Computer Sciences
Calendar: https://tinyurl.com/yd55mtgd  1210 W. Dayton St. Rm #4257
Phone: (608) 263-7132                   Madison, WI 53706-1685