Defining system variables in Mac OS X

Submitted by Jochus on Tue, 23/10/2012 - 17:07 | Posted in: Mac
Mac


If you want to define a system variable in Mac OS X, and you want all of your applications (commandline, GUI, ...) to be able to pick them up - then you need to follow the steps:

  • Open a terminal
  • Execute the command:
    $ sudo nano /etc/launchd.conf
    Remark: In my case, the file didn't exist, so don't worry if you need to create it
  • Insert the following text (I added 2 examples: JAVA_HOME and JREBEL_HOME)
    # Set environment variables here so they are available globally to all apps
# (and Terminal)
#
# After editing this file run the following command from the terminal to update 
# environment variables globally without needing to reboot.
# NOTE: You will still need to restart the relevant application (including 
# Terminal) to pick up the changes!
# grep -E "^setenv" /etc/launchd.conf | xargs -t -L 1 launchctl
 
setenv JAVA_HOME /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
setenv JREBEL_HOME /Applications/eclipse/plugins/org.zeroturnaround.eclipse.embedder_5.0.1.RELEASE-201207191833/jrebel

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