Re: Ideal place to set environment variables

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> I have an extremely simple real-world litmus test which every system
> I've ever seen so far has failed:
>
>   How do I set MAIL=$HOME/Maildir/ in the login environment of every
>   user, regardless of their shell, or how they log in (console, ssh,
>   X Display Manager, GNOME Display Manager, etc.)?
>
> That's it.  Simple, right?  But login.conf can't do it.  And pam_env.so
> can't do it.  They only allow static strings with no substitutions.
> In fact I'm not aware of ANYTHING that can do it.

And the sad fact is that this ridiculous situation has been with us for
more than 20 years.  Better yet: MacOSX managed to reproduce this
blunder, despite having an easy shot at doing it right.

Anyone wants to bet if/when systemd/logind will finally provide a solution?


        Stefan