RedHat/Centos6.5 Environmental Variables Set on Startup - but from where?

Question

I using Redhat/Centos 6.5.

I am starting up the system and it already has environment variables set and is already running processes when it starts up.

My questions:

Where do these environment variables get set?
Where do these processes get set and how do I know what is running?

I think the first part of your question is answered here: How to determine where an environment variable came from. — Haxiel, Jan 14 '19 at 07:07

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 06 '19 at 00:10

Well, when you login in a RedHat based distro, you will land in your home directory which by default is in /home/user. In that directory you will find some hidden files/scripts that are executed in order to prepare your environment and other stuff.

Answer to question 1: .bashrc and .bash_profile are the files that load all the variables you see when you run the printenv or env command. You can see those files by running ls -la in your home directory.

Answer to question 2: The ps command by itselt won't show all the process that are running, you should run ps -ef instead. Of course you can filter that output using grep command like ps -ef|grep -i somethingtomatch or run the top command.

Run man ps and man top for more info about these utilities.

@sheeple please vote up the answer or mark as correct so it could help others. Glad that helped. — Manuel Florian, Jan 15 '19 at 18:33

RedHat/Centos6.5 Environmental Variables Set on Startup - but from where?

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