How to set environment variables

anjaan · 06-10-2004, 12:10 PM

Hi all, I would like to set up an environment variable under SuSe Linux. What would be root's startup file. .profile and .bash_profile don't exist. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Dark_Helmet · 06-10-2004, 12:46 PM

For bash, there primarily four files to look at:
/etc/profile
/etc/bashrc
~/.bash_profile
~/.bashrc

You can modify any of them to export the variable. For the files located in /etc, the changes will be included for every user. For the files in ~/, the chages will only be for that particular user. If the file doesn't exist, just create one adding whatever necesssary commands with a text editor and save it. Then re-log (or source the file) to have the changes take effect.

anjaan · 06-10-2004, 02:00 PM

Thanks very much

One last question. Lets say running some script requires running a variable first. Doest that mean that I need to run that variable (by adding to /etc/profile for example) for crontab as well? Does cron require you to run a variable? Where would I specify the same variable for cron? Thanks in advance

jim mcnamara · 06-10-2004, 02:04 PM

For cron you may have to declare the variable inside the script you run.