Where does PATH at login come from?

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <18613 at unix.SRI.COM> ric at ace.sri.com (Richard Steinberger) writes:
>When I log on to some of our BSD unix machines (Alliant, Multiflow,
>DEC 3100), I notice that the PATH variable has some initial members,
>usually something like (/usr/ucb /usr/bin /bin .).  Can anyone
>let me know where these initial elements of PATH come from?
>Is this at all configurable?  Thanks to any and all who reply.

Typically there are three possible sources for the initial PATH:
	The shell itself will have some hard-wired default PATH.
	A system-wide configuration file (/etc/profile, for example)
	can reset the PATH, if the shell reads the configuration file.
	Each user can have his own configuration file in his home
	directory; names are usually .profile (sh) and .login (csh).