O módulo PAM pam_env permite que você defina-os em /etc/environment
ou em ~/.pam_environment
, dependendo se você quiser para todos os usuários (em todo o sistema) ou apenas para o usuário (em toda a sessão).
System-wide environment variables
Environment variable settings that affect the system as a whole (rather then just a particular user) should not be placed in any of the many system-level scripts that get executed when the system or the desktop session are loaded, but into
/etc/environment
- This file is specifically meant for system-wide environment variable settings. It is not a script file, but rather consists of assignment expressions, one per line. Specifically, this file stores the system-wide locale and path settings.
Session-wide environment variables
Environment variable settings that should affect just a particular user (rather then the system as a whole) should be set into:
~/.pam_environment
- This file is specifically meant for setting a user's environment. It is not a script file, but rather consists of assignment expressions, one per line.Note: Using
.pam_environment
requires a re-login in order to initialize the variables. Restarting just the terminal is not sufficient to be able to use the variables.
Veja mais em wiki do Ubuntu sobre variáveis de ambiente .