How to permanently export a variable in Linux

Question

I am running RHEL6  and I have exported an environment variable like this   export DISPLAY  0   That variable is lost when the terminal is closed  How do I permanently add this so that this variable value always exists with a particular user

User · Answer

add the line to your  bashrc or  profile  The variables set in  HOME  profile are active for the current user  the ones in  etc profile are global  The  bashrc is pulled on each bash session start

User · Answer

A particular example  I have Java 7 and Java 6 installed  I need to run some builds with 6  others with 7  Therefore I need to dynamically alter JAVA HOME so that maven picks up what I want for each build  I did the following    created j6 sh script which simply does export JAVA HOME     path to j6 install    then  as suggested by one of the comments above  whenever I need J6 for a build  I run source j6 sh in that respective command terminal  By default  my JAVA HOME is set to J7    Hope this helps

User · Answer

You have to edit three files to set a permanent environment variable as follow      bashrc When you open any terminal window this file will be run  Therefore  if you wish to have a permanent environment variable in all of your terminal windows you have to add the following line at the end of this file  export DISPLAY 0      profile Same as bashrc you have to put the mentioned command line at the end of this file to have your environment variable in every login of your OS    etc environment If you want your environment variable in every window or application  not just terminal window  you have to edit this file  Add the following command at the end of this file  DISPLAY 0  Note that in this file you do not have to write export command   Normally you have to restart your computer to apply these changes  But you can apply changes in bashrc and profile by these commands    source    bashrc   source    profile  But for  etc environment you have no choice but restarting  as far as I know  A Simple Solution I ve written a simple script for these procedures to do all those work  You just have to set the name and value of your environment variable     bin bash echo  quot Enter variable name   quot  read variable name echo  quot Enter variable value   quot  read variable value echo  quot adding  quot   variable name  quot  to environment variables   quot   variable value echo  quot export  quot  variable name quot   quot  variable value gt  gt    bashrc echo  variable name quot   quot  variable value gt  gt    profile echo  variable name quot   quot  variable value gt  gt  etc environment source    bashrc source    profile echo  quot do you want to restart your computer to apply changes in  etc environment file  yes y no n  quot  read restart case  restart in     y  sudo shutdown -r 0       n  echo  quot don t forget to restart your computer manually quot    esac exit  Save these lines in a shfile then make it executable and just run it

User · Answer

If it suits anyone  here are some brief guidelines for adding environment variables permanently   vi    bash profile   Add the variables to the file   export DISPLAY  0 export JAVA HOME   opt openjdk11   Immediately apply all changes   source    bash profile   Source  https   www serverlab ca tutorials linux administration-linux how-to-set-environment-variables-in-linux

User · Answer

On Ubuntu systems  use the following locations    System-wide persistent variables in the format of JAVA PATH  usr local java store in   etc environment  System-wide persistent variables that reference variables such as export PATH   JAVA PATH  PATH  store in   etc  bashrc  User specific persistent variables in the format of PATH  DEFAULT  usr bin usr local bin store in     pam environment    For more details on  2  check this  Ask Ubuntu answer  NOTE    3 is the Ubuntu recommendation but may have security concerns in the real world

User · Answer

You can add it to your shell configuration file  e g   HOME  bashrc or more globally in  etc environment  After adding these lines the changes won t reflect instantly in GUI based system s you have to exit the terminal or create a new one and in server logout the session and login to reflect these changes

[linux] How to permanently export a variable in Linux?

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