How can I set environment variables in my Linux service for Asterisk even though it doesn't have a real user?

Question

I have created a linux service that runs as a deamon (and gets started from /etc/init.d/X). I need to set some environment variables that can be accessed by the application.

Here's the scenario. The application is a bunch of Perl AGI scripts that depend on (and therefore need to run as) asterisk user but asterisk doesn't have a shell. Ideally I'd just set this in /home/asterisk/.bashrc but that doesn't exist for asterisk.

How can I set environment variables for my app in the asterisk user's running environment so that my app can use them?

Answer 1

Either set them in the startup script (/etc/init.d/yourdaemon), or put a line in that file that looks like:

. /etc/yourdaemon.env

and put the environment variables in that file, using the syntax export VAR=value. (Or, safer, VAR=value; export VAR. Some Linux/Unix systems use shells as /bin/sh that don't understand the former syntax. bash is safe, though.)