Add /usr/sbin and /sbin to default root PATH When dropbear is used in a very restricted environment (such as in a initrd), the default user shell is often also very restricted and doesn't take care of setting the PATH so the user ends up with the PATH set by dropbear. Unfortunately, dropbear always sets "/usr/bin:/bin" as default PATH even for the root user which should have /usr/sbin and /sbin too. For a concrete instance of this problem, see the "Remote Unlocking" section in this tutorial: https://paxswill.com/blog/2013/11/04/encrypted-raspberry-pi/ It speaks of a bug in the initramfs script because it's written "blkid" instead of "/sbin/blkid"... this is just because the scripts from the initramfs do not expect to have a PATH without the sbin directories and because dropbear is not setting the PATH appropriately for the root user. I'm thus suggesting to use the attached patch to fix this misbehaviour (I did not test it, but it's easy enough). It might seem anecdotic but multiple Kali users have been bitten by this. From https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=903403

Source: dropbear
Section: net
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Gerrit Pape <[email protected]>
Build-Depends: libz-dev
Standards-Version: 3.7.3.0

Package: dropbear
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
Suggests: openssh-client, runit
Description: lightweight SSH2 server and client
 dropbear is a SSH 2 server and client designed to be small enough to
 be used in small memory environments, while still being functional and
 secure enough for general use.
 .
 It implements most required features of the SSH 2 protocol, and other
 features such as X11 and authentication agent forwarding.
 .
 See http://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html