[solved]issues adding environmental variables to /etc/environmental

[santiagorf]

Hi all,
I'd like to create a script that adds some environmental variables from a file "variables" to /etc/environment

The file "variables" is of the form

#!/bin/sh
export ROOT=/opt/drivers
export ROOT2=$ROOT/S56
....

My idea was to add the "variables" file to /etc/environmental

sudo sh -c "cat  variables  >> /etc/environment"

The problem with this approach is that if I

echo $ROOT2

I get

$ROOT/S56

rather than the expected

/opt/drivers/S56

However, if from the terminal I run

source variables

then if I

echo $ROOT2

I get the expected result

/opt/drivers/S56

How can I solve this issue?

I could manually change the "variables" file to

#!/bin/sh
export ROOT=/opt/drivers
export ROOT2=${ROOT}/S56

....

but the "variables" file might change in the future and is not me who creates it, so I need a more "automatic solution".

Any help would be much appreciated!

[schragge]

I guess /etc/environment just doesn't get sourced by any shell script on Ubuntu anymore. On Debian, it's still sourced from /etc/init.d/kbd, but Ubuntu uses upstart. Try

grep /etc/environment /etc/init/*.conf

Previously, it was used for locale settings and got sourced from /etc/init/mountall.conf. But it's deprecated in that role nowadays and /etc/default/locale gets sourced by /etc/init/mountall.conf instead.

/etc/environment still gets evaluated by PAM module pam_env(8), but it's a C program that expects variables in /etc/environment to be simple KEY=VALUE pairs on separate lines.

community/EnvironmentVariables#System-wide_environment_variables recommends placing your system-wide environment variables in /etc/profile.d/envvar.sh

Also see this thread on debian-devel and manual page for pam_env.conf(5).

[santiagorf]

Thanks. That seemed to solve the problem!!