What is the proper way to modify environment variables like PATH in OS X? I've looked on google a little bit and found 3 different files to edit:
I don't even have some of these, and I'm pretty sure that .tcshrc is wrong, since osx uses bash now. Anybody have any idea where these variables, especially PATH, are defined?
Edit: I'm running OS X 10.5
You set them in
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
See http://snipurl.com/apple_environment
For PATH in the Terminal, you should be able to set in .bash_profile or .profile (you'll probably have to create it though)
Any of the Bash startup files -- ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile. There's also some sort of weird file named ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist for environment variables in GUI applications.
for a single user modification, use ~/.profile of the ones you listed, the following link explains when the different files are read by bash
http://telin.ugent.be/~slippens/drupal/bashrc_and_others
if you want to set the environment variable for gui applications you need the ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist file
Google is your friend, so does the official documentation: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSX_Technology_Overview/CommandLine/chapter_950_section_4.html
well, I'm unsure about /etc/paths and ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist those are new.
But with bash, you should know that .bashrc is executed with every new shell invocation and .bash_profile is only executed once at startup. Don't know how often this is with macos, I think the distinction has broken down with the window system launching everything.
Personally, I eliminate the confusion by creating a .bashrc with everything I need and then do:
ln -s .bashrc .bash_profile
Sometimes all of the previous answers simply don't work. If you want to have access to a system variable (like M2_HOME) in Eclipse or in IntelliJ the only thing that works for me in this case is:
First (step 1) edit /etc/launchd.conf to contain a line like this: "setenv VAR value" and then (step 2) reboot.
Simply modifying .bash_profile won't work because in osx the applications are not started as in other UNIX'es, they don't inherit the parents shell variables. All the other modifications won't work for a reason that is unknown to me. Maybe someone else can clarify about this.
Bruno is right on track. I've done extensive research and if you want to set variables that are available in all GUI apps, your only option is /etc/launchd.conf
Please note that environment.plist does not work for applications launched via Spotlight. This is documented by Steve Sexton here.
1) Open a terminal prompt
2) Type sudo vi /etc/launchd.conf
3) Put contents like the following into the file
setenv JAVA_VERSION 1.6
setenv JAVA_HOME /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Home
setenv GROOVY_HOME /Applications/Dev/groovy
setenv GRAILS_HOME /Applications/Dev/grails
setenv NEXUS_HOME /Applications/Dev/nexus/nexus-webapp
setenv JRUBY_HOME /Applications/Dev/jruby
setenv ANT_HOME /Applications/Dev/apache-ant
setenv ANT_OPTS -Xmx512M
setenv MAVEN_OPTS -Xmx1024M
setenv M2_HOME /Applications/Dev/apache-maven
setenv JMETER_HOME /Applications/Dev/jakarta-jmeter
4) Save your changes in VI and reboot your Mac.
5) Prove that your variables are working by opening a Terminal window and typing export and you should see your new variables. These will also be available in IntelliJ and other GUI apps you launch via Spotlight.
You can set the environment used by launchd (and, by extension, anything started from Spotlight) with launchctl setenv. For example to set the path:
launchctl setenv /opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
Or if you want to set up your path in .bashrc or similar, then have it mirrored in launchd:
PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
launchctl setenv PATH $PATH
There's no need to reboot (though you will need to restart an app if you want it to pick up the changed environment.)