The most important settings is possible to set in the global shell initialization files for login shells: /etc/csh.login for tcsh and /etc/profile for bash. [Scientific Data: Load balancing] .:: podcasts.apple.com ::.
Exceptions that do not get the right path from these files are rsh commands, ssh commands, menu items from X window manager that do not explicitly start login shell, commands invoked from inittab, cron jobs, daemons jobs like magic filters started from lprd, WWW CGI scripts, and so on. .:: www.yakuza.wiki ::. [Developer Guide: ASP.NET]
If the path is set in /etc/csh.cshrc, the path is right even when rsh or ssh execute command in remote machine with account using tcsh/csh. However, it is not possible to set path if account uses bash/sh.
It is possible to combine path setting to one file, for example to a file /etc/environment-common. There we write: .:: telegra.ph ::.
${EXPORT}PATH${EQ}/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/local/bin:/usr/games:.
This can be used from /etc/csh.login (for tcsh and csh) .:: writeablog.net ::.
set EQ=" " set EXPORT="setenv " source /etc/environment-common
And from /etc/profile (for bash, doesn't work for ordinary sh)
EQ='=' EXPORT="export " . /etc/environment-common
And from /etc/environment (for XDM)
EQ="=" EXPORT="export " . /etc/environment-common
This strategy works mostly but ssh will complain of the lines in /etc/environment (and defined environment variables EQ and EXPORT). And still, rsh commands executed with bash won't get this path.