For some reason I keep getting the "command not found" error message when trying anyone of a number of commands. The most recent being the shutdown one. It has worked up to now but at a loss as to why this is happening. I have checked the permissions on the shutdown command and they are 755. I am logged in as root.

When I type echo $PATH I get the following output to the screeen:

/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/:/home/Rubicone/bin

When I issue the which shutdown command the output is:

/usr/bin/which: no shutdown in (within here is the path as noted above)

When I issue the whence shutdown then the aforementioned command not found error message is displayed.

Somehow your path got messed up. The shutdown command is in /sbin along with other sys config binaries.

Is there a solution? If so then please post it. TIA.

edit your .bash_profile file /root/.bash_profile

Yea somehow your $PATH variable got screwed up. Root should have the /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/root/bin

Correct me if I left some out..

Also is you login as a normal user and do just su and give root password you will get what you got when you echo $PATH

use su -
or su root

then you will get roots $PATH

When I usually log in I do so initially as root by simply typing root and then my password as well as a regular user by opening a second terminal (Alt+F2). I really do not see how my path got changed the way it did. I did manage to shutdown, or rather reboot by exiting then typing su- with my root password. I still don't understand why I got the "command not found" error messages as I was logged in as root to begin with.

It sounds like you switched users from another user to root without using the -. If you do su root without the -, then you do not inheret the root users environment. So when you try to run commands that root normally has access to, they won't work as you saw.

If you are going to switch users to root, always use su -, or su - root. Forgetting the - can cause you a lot of headaches.

Ryan