Define extra `$PATH` for either Passenger or nginx

I have a server with nginx and Passenger serving a Ruby on Rails app. It uses Bundler.

Somewhere in this stack, the $PATH gets set to /var/www/APPNAME/shared/bundle/ruby/1.8/bin/. This directory contains, indeed, executable gems.

But I need my application to also have /usr/bin available in its $PATH. More specific: I need it to be able to run idendtify, convert and mogrify; imagemagick commands.

For now, I have symlinked these imagemagick binaries from /var/www/APPNAME/shared/bundle/ruby/1.8/bin/:

ls /var/www/APPNAME/shared/bundle/ruby/1.8/bin/ -ahl
#...
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   16 May  8 16:22 convert -> /usr/bin/convert
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ber  root  379 Jan 11 08:58 erubis
#...

It’s more of a quick hack than an actual solution, though.

How can I assign extra directories to $PATH? And where should I do that? Passenger, nginx, the Rails app?

The ruby options are a good way to do this. Specify that the $LOAD_PATH have /usr/bin.

-Idirectory     specify $LOAD_PATH directory (may be used more than once)

It is what it is there for, after all.

Another thing you can do is push the directory onto the $: global psuedo-variable.

$:.push("/usr/bin")

This would fit wherever you have your environment customization in your application.

I would probably do this for the Rails Application itself, as that is where you are concerned about it. It is what you have control over.