Startup question

[Phil Schaffner]

On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 21:34 -0500, Michael Sullivan wrote:
> Does /etc/profile when the system starts up or does it only execute when
> a user logs in?

This is the system-wide default profile for all users.  Use it to set
things you need everyone to have.  There's also /etc/profile.d/ that
contains scripts to set up for particular apps.

> I need to set my JAVA_HOME variable for Tomcat when the
> system starts up.  In my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file I have:
> 
> JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java.sdk
> export JAVA_HOME

/etc/rc.d/rc.local is for things that need to be customized to run at
boot that don't support SysVinit (/etc/init.d/...) scripts, not for user
customization.

> 
> but when I try to startup Tomcat from the command line as root I get:
> 
> The JAVA_HOME environment variable is not defined
> This environment variable is needed to run this program
> 
> 
> I "echo $JAVA_HOME" and it give me blank lines, as if $JAVA_HOME was
> never set.  I am doing this right, aren't I?

The usual place to set environment variables for a user would be in
~/.bash_profile

Phil