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Application Environment Setup Using /etc/profile.d/*

When a user logs in, environment variables are set from various places.  That includes /etc/profile (for all users).

Then all the files in the /etc/profile.d directory.

Then ~/.bash_profile, then ~/.bashrc.

/etc/profile.d/ is a good place to put your application specific setups.  For example, I always use SSH for CVS (cf. RSH).  So I use:

echo "export CVS_RSH=ssh" >> /etc/profile.d/cvs.sh
chmod +x /etc/profile.d/cvs.sh

See also: http://www.linux-migration.org/ch02s03.html

Resolving 'But it doesn't work!'

Check your /etc/profile.d/ script has a .sh extension.  Else it looks like the bash shell will not pick it up.