How to change default /tmp to /home/user/tmp

Question

Is there an environment variable to set the temporary directory on debian based systems?

I have a java applet that uses that environement variable and it's getting confused when launching two instances of the same applet.

Solution 1

I am unsure if the java applet will actually look at the environment variables before it starts, but what you can do it edit /etc/profile and add the following lines:

if [[ -O /home/$USER/tmp && -d /home/$USER/tmp ]]; then
        TMPDIR=/home/$USER/tmp
else
        # You may wish to remove this line, it is there in case
        # a user has put a file 'tmp' in there directory or a
        rm -rf /home/$USER/tmp 2> /dev/null
        mkdir -p /home/$USER/tmp
        TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d /home/$USER/tmp/XXXX)
fi

TMP=$TMPDIR
TEMP=$TMPDIR

export TMPDIR TMP TEMP

To make it a true tmp directory (as in the files go away when the session is ended, you'll want to edit the user's .bash_logout as well as the skeleton .bash_logout (/etc/skel/.bash_logout) to include the following:

if [ -O $TMPDIR && -d $TMPDIR ]; then
        rm -rf $TMPDIR/*
fi

The logout portion is dangerous is the variable doesn't get set and your logged in as root! I wouldn't add this to the root account or anyone that is a member of the wheel group! Proceed at your own caution.

Solution 2

The file you are looking for is:

/etc/environment

You have to set the TEMP variable like:

TEMP=/home/user/tmp

Solution 3

If you want /home/user/tmp to be cleaned on reboot, I suggest you add an @reboot job to the user's personal crontab.

Solution 4

Java uses the system property java.io.tmpdir to configure the temporary directory. A reasonable JRE will set that to a sensible value based on the system if not explicitly specified.

Solution 5

In C, I would use the tmpfile() call for a posix system, which would avoid the collision. So I would look for a similar Java call before trying to implement it myself, if you haven't already.

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Comments

[poige]

unix.stackexchange.com/a/192426/6622

[abby]

This assumes he is the one developing the application

[Kyle Brandt]

TrueDuality: Ah, my mistake

[Steve Townsend]

I wouldn't put the cleanup into .bash_logout at all - what happens if they open up two sessions and log out of one? Use tmpwatch. :)

[GURU-MVG]

Java has java.io.File.createTempFile. Now with added secure RNG.

[abby]

That is a much better cleanup solution, thanks for adding that. :)

[Fedir RYKHTIK]

And even export TEMP=/home/user/tmp

[user649102]

@Fedir that is in the shell, yes.

[Hama Sabah]

NB: the tmpwatch command does not exists on BSD (e.g. OSX) version of unix, for anyone going for portability. My CentOS boxes have it though. :)

[dortegaoh]

This will only print the text TMPDIR=/path/to/desired/tmp. Nothing else.

[nyxee]

Sorry about that. Had to be export not echo. It really saved me a ot of pain. Some process was writing extremely large files to /tmp and I didn't want to allocate the space just for it. Or, reboot.