Defining Custom Environment Variables on Mac OS X

When using the Identity Finder client software, it may be desirable to define custom environment variables for use in custom folder lists, ignore lists, or other search scope and settings.  In order for any application, including the Identity Finder client, to recognize custom environment variables, they must be defined in a custom property list (plist) file.  The steps for creating this plist are detailed below.

Procedure

To create the plist file to specify custom environment variables, perform these steps:

1. Using a Mac OS X system with the Property List Editor application (included with Xcode), create a new plist named:

   environment.plist

2. Select the Root key of the plist and, for each custom environment variable, perform these steps:
   1. Click Add Child to create a new Key
   2. Type the name of the environment variable in the Key column
   3. Ensure that the type is set to String
   4. Type the desired value in the Value column
3. Save environment.plist and note the location where it was saved.
4. For each Mac OS X computer where the environment variables are to be defined (see Additional Information below), perform these steps:
   
   1. Copy the environment.plist file to desktop
   2. Open a Terminal window
   3. Navigate to the appropriate user's home directory:
      • If setting environment variables for the currently logged in Mac OS user, execute the following command:

        cd ~/

      • If setting environment variables for a different user, navigate to their USERNAME folder, where USERNAME is the username of the desired user:

        cd /Users/USERNAME

        
        Note: Ensure that the currently logged on user has write access to the specified USERNAME folder or issue the following command to become the root user:

        sudo su -

   4. Create the .MacOSX folder, if it does not already exist:

      mkdir .MacOSX

   5. Navigate into the .MacOSX folder:

      cd .MacOSX

   6. Copy the environment.plist file to the .MacOSX folder:

      cp ~/Desktop/environment.plist .

Additional Information

If the same environment variables are required for multiple users in the environment, a Mac OS administrator should create a script to copy the environment.plist file into the .MacOSX directory for each user on each system, as required.

More information on creating and using environment variables is available on Apple's developer web site:

• https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/EnvironmentVars.html