Default bash environment changed. How do I revert it to default?

Question

I am using AWS EC2 along with the CodeStar services. I wanted to add the path to maven's binary to the PATH environment variable. So I wrote it to the /etc/environment file and executed the command:

source /etc/environment

But it has now changed the default environment of the bash shell and now I am not able to execute any command. Even for a command like ls it gives output -bash: command not found

How do I revert back to the default settings. I tried whatever my brain could think of. But nothing helped. Would be glad to hear from the community.

Answer 1

In order to revert back to the default settings:

1. As @Cyrus wrote you should update the PATH variable

   • In the bash shell run the following command:

      PATH="/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin" 

2. Undo the changes to the /etc/environment

   • edit the /etc/environment using the same method you used before, and remove the PATH line you added to the file

You can use sudo vi /etc/environment or any other editor you prefer

Note: In my AWS machine, the /etc/environment file is empty.