.zshenv not sourced on ssh login?

ssh zsh environment-variables login path

5,313

zshenv is indeed read by every instance of the shell, but it is read first, before anything else. Your $PATH is probably getting reset in zprofile (~/.zprofile or /etc/zprofile, ...).

zshenv is not a good place to set your $PATH. It belongs in zprofile, which has the job of setting up the environment upon login. Setting environment variables in zshenv means among other things that they will get clobbered when running simple zsh subshells or zsh scripts within one session.

5,313

Wayne Werner

I'm a husband to my beautiful wife, father to our children, Computer Science graduate from University of Central Arkansas. I love my wife, our children, computers, playing guitar (especially singing/playing for my wife and/or kids), bicycling (including taking my kids for rides in my bike trailer), woodworking, airbrushing, digital and traditional artistry, playing games with my family (traditional and digital), my poor Chevette that I had to sell, throwing knives, firearms, knot tying, rope making, whip making, and really just learning new stuff in general. If I don't know about it I probably want to learn about it, if only so I can make informed decisions about it. My three favorite programming languages are Python, Lisp, and Assembly (though I'm not sure about the order of those last two languages...). I think the CANSPAM act is one of the dumbest pieces of legislation in the history of the universe I love Python and HTML+Javascript. I'm #SOreadytohelp (I really want a t-shirt, what can I say?)

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Wayne Werner over 1 year
According to the docs

.zshenv is sourced on all invocations of the shell, unless the -f option is set. It should contain commands to set the command search path, plus other important environment variables. .zshenv should not contain commands that produce output or assume the shell is attached to a tty.

Okay, cool, so I would assume that logging in via ssh is considered an invocation of zsh... but maybe not?
```
wayne@arglefraster ~ 
⚘ echo $PATH                                                                                                   10:01:17
/usr/local/heroku/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/default/bin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl
wayne@arglefraster ~ 
⚘ zsh                                                                                                          10:01:20
e%                                                                                                                      
wayne@arglefraster ~ 
⚘ echo $PATH                                                                                                   10:01:24
/usr/local/heroku/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/default/bin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl:/home/wayne/.rvm/bin:/home/wayne/.bin:/home/wayne/.local/bin
```
Those extra bits of path are added in my .zshenv file.

Is this normal, or do I have something wonky going on? Should I move my PATH modifications elsewhere?
- Jakuje about 8 years
  
  You have zsh as your default shell in /etc/passd or you start it somehow different?
- Wayne Werner about 8 years
  
  @Jakuje almost added this to the question: wayne:x:1000:100::/home/wayne:/bin/zsh
- thrig about 8 years
  
  Use zsh -o SOURCE_TRACE to confirm what files are being read, and then zsh -x to see what configuration is done, in particular for PATH, in the event something else is trampling the .zshenv changes.
Wayne Werner about 8 years

Well, it definitely wasn't getting reset in ~/.zprofile or /etc/zprofile, as I have neither of those files. Nor ~/.zshrc, as there's no PATH variable there. But, setting the PATH in ~/.zprofile does appear to work properly. Following @thrig's comment, it may have been the virtualenvwrapper, though it seems strange that it would totally clobber the PATH
Leonard over 3 years

I'm confused. This is the opposite of this answer here which says ~/.zhsenv should have the $PATH .