Several ways to modify environment variables in ubuntu
There are various ways to modify the environment variables of an Ubuntu system, including:
- Temporarily modify environment variables: Use the export command in the terminal to temporarily modify environment variables. For example, to add the PATH environment variable to a new directory, you can run the following command:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/new/directory
This will add the new directory to the PATH environment variable in the current terminal session. However, these changes will be removed when the terminal is closed.
- Permanently modify environment variables: To permanently modify environment variables, you can edit system-level configuration files or user-level configuration files. System-level configuration files include /etc/environment and /etc/profile files, while user-level configuration files include ~/.bashrc and ~/.profile files.
- Adding an environment variable to the /etc/environment file will make it available to all users and processes. For example, to add a new directory to the PATH environment variable, edit the /etc/environment file and add the following line:
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/path/to/new/directory"
- Adding an environment variable in /etc/profile will make it available to all users. For example, to add a new directory to the PATH environment variable, edit the /etc/profile file and add the following line:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/new/directory
- Adding an environment variable in the ~/.bashrc file will make it available to the current user. For example, to add a new directory to the PATH environment variable, edit the ~/.bashrc file and add the following line:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/new/directory
- Adding an environment variable to the ~/.profile file will make it available to the current user. For example, to add a new directory to the PATH environment variable, edit the ~/.profile file and add the following line:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/new/directory
- Difference: Different methods have different scope and permanence.
- Temporarily modifying environment variables is only valid in the current terminal session and is deleted after closing the terminal.
- Adding an environment variable to the /etc/environment file will make it available to all users and processes and persist across system reboots.
- Adding an environment variable to the /etc/profile file will make it available to all users and persist across system reboots.
- Adding an environment variable to the ~/.bashrc file will make it available to the current user and persist after the user logs out.
- Adding an environment variable to the ~/.profile file will make it available to the current user and persist after the user logs out.