Env variables for linux - best practice

Per the below take from http://docs.opscode.com/chef/resources.html#env

On UNIX-based systems, the best way to manipulate environment keys is with
the ENV variable in Ruby; however, this approach does not have the same
permanent effect as using the env resource.

What is the best way to use chef resource to add environment variables in
Ubuntu?

E.g. if I want to set export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=foobar…what is the most
chefonic method do do this?

This there a clear example on how to this?

Thanks

Like most things with UNIX/Linux, that depends. UNIX doesn't have an
equivalent to "global environment variables".

That said, each shell has its own way of handling globals. tcsh and bash,
for example, are often set up to load things from /etc/profile.d, so if you
drop files in there, they should be loaded (.sh suffix for bash, .csh
suffix for tcsh). A lot of the mechanics depend on your operating system
distro though. I run CentOS/RHEL/Fedora and this is what it does.

  • Julian

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 10:08 PM, David Montgomery <
davidmontgomery@gmail.com> wrote:

Per the below take from All Infra Resources

On UNIX-based systems, the best way to manipulate environment keys is with
the ENV variable in Ruby; however, this approach does not have the same
permanent effect as using the env resource.

What is the best way to use chef resource to add environment variables in
Ubuntu?

E.g. if I want to set export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=foobar..what is the most
chefonic method do do this?

This there a clear example on how to this?

Thanks

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]

What processes will be using that env variable? If its managed by chef,
then you can always wrap VARIABLE=value around that process. Note, chef
also allows explicitly passing environment variables using environment
attribute in execute resource (and all dialects of it, like bash etc). If
you want to permanent ENV value, you have many option, depending upon the
user and his shell. Last resort is /etc/profile.d , which i think is bad,
as it pollutes all users environment

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 10:32 PM, Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com wrote:

Like most things with UNIX/Linux, that depends. UNIX doesn't have an
equivalent to "global environment variables".

That said, each shell has its own way of handling globals. tcsh and bash,
for example, are often set up to load things from /etc/profile.d, so if you
drop files in there, they should be loaded (.sh suffix for bash, .csh
suffix for tcsh). A lot of the mechanics depend on your operating system
distro though. I run CentOS/RHEL/Fedora and this is what it does.

  • Julian

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 10:08 PM, David Montgomery <
davidmontgomery@gmail.com> wrote:

Per the below take from All Infra Resources

On UNIX-based systems, the best way to manipulate environment keys is
with the ENV variable in Ruby; however, this approach does not have the
same permanent effect as using the env resource.

What is the best way to use chef resource to add environment variables in
Ubuntu?

E.g. if I want to set export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=foobar..what is the most
chefonic method do do this?

This there a clear example on how to this?

Thanks

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]