Question

10

"Pointers" with $ Syntax in /etc/environment

rated 0 times [ 10] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 9823 / 1 Year ago, sat, december 31, 2022, 6:08:22

Is it valid to have "pointers" in /etc/environment using $FOO syntax? Right now my /etc/environment looks like this:

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk

MAVEN_HOME=/usr/bin/apache-maven/apache-maven-3.0.4

M2_HOME=$MAVEN_HOME

M2=$MAVEN_HOME/bin

PATH=/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:$JAVA_HOME/bin:$MAVEN_HOME/bin

I'm not getting the results that I'm expecting though:

~$ echo $JAVA_HOME

/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk

~$ echo $MAVEN_HOME

/usr/bin/apache-maven/apache-maven-3.0.4

~$ echo $PATH

/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin/bin:/usr/games:$JAVA_HOME/bin:$MAVEN_HOME/bin

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coffekne

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answered 1 Year ago tusmuumu · Accepted Answer

I didn't find much documentation on /etc/environment, but the reason things don't work the way you expect is that it's "not a script file", and thus is not processed by the shell, so referencing a previously-defined variable doesn't work. This explains the behaviour you're seeing.

You're better off defining these kinds of environment variables in your home, in .profile or .bashrc, or if you need them for all users, in /etc/profile.d or /etc/bash.bashrc.

There's some pretty extensive documentation on setting environment variables here, and it points to either .profile or .bashrc as the preferred place to put this stuff.