Need clarification about /etc/environment
Hi,
I need some explanation about /etc/environment. Here is what I have
found out:
- Seems to originate from the AIX world.
- Contains NAME=VALUE pairs exclusively. Some literature even says no
comments allowed.
- Is _NOT_ a shell script fragment for _any_ shell
- Is evaluated for example by pam_env, causing "NAME=\VALUE" to be
parsed into the environment variable NAME with a value starting with
an actual backslash
- If (wrongly) sourced from a shell script, "NAME=\VALUE" will be
parsed into the environment variable NAME with a value starting with
V.
- Virtually every shell script I have seen simply sources the file
instead of properly parsing it.
- There is no man page for it in Debian, nor seems there to be any
documentation mentioning that file.
- /etc/environment does not seem to belong to any package.
What is the canonical way of handling /etc/environment? I don't want
to simply source the file in my init.d script to fix bug #158981,
since I now know this is wrong.
Is there any example code to parse /etc/environment into environment
variables with proper quote handling and such, or can I manually
invoke the code from pam_env to do so?
Which Package deserves the bug report for the missing manpage?
Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Karlsruhe, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | Fon: *49 721 966 32 15
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31 29
Reply to: