How can I add a directory to my PATH in Mac OS X 10.7?

Question

1. I created an alias for a command that uses a file from one of my directories.

2. This alias is loaded in .bash_profile in the following format: alias NAME_OF_COMMAND='ssh -i NAME_OF_KEYFILE USER@IP_ADDRESS'

3. I want to be able to use the alias from anywhere on my system but the KEYFILE (a.k.a. NAME_OF_KEYFILE) is only present in one directory which is not part of my $PATH (it's a subdirectory of dropbox).

4. I tried to adding that directory to the path with the following command: export PATH=$PATH:/NAME/OF/DIRECTORY

I could see this was nominally successful because when I enter $PATH the new directory shows up at the end of the $PATH variable.

1. However, when I try to carry out my ssh command I get the error: Warning: Identity file KEYFILE not accessible: No such file or directory.

Answer 1

The path is generally used to search for executables, not data files in general.

Your best bet is probably to change the alias so that the keyfile is a fully qualified path name, something like:

alias myssh='ssh -i $HOME/ssh/mykeyfile.ppk pax@example.com'

With a fully qualified key file, it won't matter where you currently are in the file system (assuming ssh itself is on your path somewhere, of course, but that's a different matter).